


Lost & Found

by Chi_Raven



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Gen, Mutant Powers, Other, Silas University, X-men Inspired, supernatural powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chi_Raven/pseuds/Chi_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis is a college student approaching the end of her 2nd college year when one night her life literally gets zapped sideways. Humans with rare and extraordinary powers are being coveted and disappearing while Laura learns about a hidden part of the world she never knew existed and is inadvertently connected to. Joining a fight she didn't know about with interesting new friends and a smart-ass adversary by the name of Carmilla Karnstein, Laura learns that with great and wonderful power comes great responsibility. Well, maybe she will, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Light Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first story I've posted on here. Yay!  
> I feel like it's missing a LOT of details, though I'm a perfectionist and tend to add too many details...  
> Anyway, I'll probably change things on it and add a lot more tags, ratings, etc. as the story gets going. But for now, please let me know what you think!? I would very much appreciate it :)  
> And I hope you like it!  
> Just so you know, I probably won't be using any warnings or anything like that, so if you would like me to mention anything about if I'll talk about blood, cursing, demons, death, abuse, or anything else at all that might bother you if I didn't warn you...? Just let me know. 
> 
> Chapter one starts in Laura's POV.

**_“I had a dream that fire fell_ **

**_From an opening in the sky_ **

**_And someone warned me of this hell_ **

**_And I spit in his naïve eye...”_ **

 

I stared down at my mother’s body, her hands folded together in her lap; she looked so peaceful.

My mother wore a dark blue dress that used to bring out her eyes when she would smile. Now her eyes were shut, her mouth made to represent a small smile, presumably embalmed to stay that way until she was six feet under the dirt.

I swept my hand over the fabric on her arm closest to me and felt no warmth coming from her. It was odd.

The room around me was small, a vase of flowers I couldn’t name on a table nearby. I could feel people in the background, their movements clouding our privacy.

It felt like I was 6 years old again. The memory of clinging to my father, my face buried in his neck as my eyes peeked over him, staring at people dressed in black clothing filled my head. He’d rubbed my back for 2 hours straight, not once putting me down through the entire service. Even though I had been young, the sadness my father felt couldn’t be missed and I clung to him partially because I was a naïve child who didn’t fully understand the concept of not having a mother yet and partially because I felt like I was the only thing keeping him from weeping uncontrollably. I had looked at his eyes more than once that day, but the joy and happiness my father usually always wore was replaced with a broken look, sad and desperate for this to be a dream.

A dream...

Standing and looking down at my mother at this moment seemed wrong and not part of my childhood memory. I pulled my hand away and to my side, gripping the sides of the black dress I wore.

I had imagined what she looked like so many times, but as I tried to stare at her flawless face the details seemed to get blurrier and fainter, as if time were suddenly racing ahead and my memories of her were failing. I looked harder, squinting until my eyes were almost shut but her face seemed to scramble and fade in front of me, disappearing until it was nothing but a single color of skin bulging out where her facial features would have been.

I blinked and looked around me, now seeing myself no longer in a funeral home but alone in an empty cemetery, the people around a moment before gone. The sun moved quickly behind a dark cloud in the sky, a whisper of wind blowing through trees I could not see.

_Who are you?_

I turned my neck, scanning all around me. I tried to speak but no sound came from my throat. A flash of black sloped out of my vision and I clutched at my racing heart.

_I asked you, who you are!_

“Who’s there!?” I tried to say but I only mouthed the words, my head screaming them out senselessly.

Panic filled me and I turned back to my mother, only to find both her and her coffin gone. Instead a small tombstone sat in her place. Her name shone bright on the black slate, white etching filling out the letters and dates of her birth and death.

I couldn’t breathe. Shadows surrounded me, hiding menacing things behind them. Growls and hisses filled my ears, louder and louder until I fell to my knees.

The sun had all but vanished now and black overtook the blue-gray in the sky, the clouds coming together to form one large black blob above me. The shadows leapt around my peripheral, prowling and waiting. I screamed silently, digging my fingers into the dirt, trying in vain to not be afraid. My screams pretended to fill the air around me, pushing the shadows and their noises away. I imagined my mother appearing, suddenly in front of me, holding me and making the monsters flee like my screams would not do.

But I was alone.

The panic had started to take over my breathing, and my brain felt like ants had taken over, crawling over and inside it.

_We will find you._

I shut my eyes, shoving my palms over my eardrums and opening my mouth in a second silent cry for help. The taunting noises around me were increasing so loudly in volume that I felt I’d gone deaf, and my eyes began to fill with water that blurred my vision.

It felt like the only sound I would hear forever more was the panic-filled ringing.

_We will find you. We’re close now. Hollis!_

_We will find you! Hollishollishollisssho—_

***

I woke with a start, eyes wide. My breaths came in quick gasps.

I’d been dreaming again. Of woods and shadows and creepy things that went bump in the night. I noticed my shirt was stuck to my chest, drenched in sweat all down the front and I was glad I stopped wearing bras to sleep.

I let out another shaky breath and closed my eyes, wiping my hands on my quilted comforter. A soft whine came from the golden lump by my feet as my 80-lb mutt lifted her head up, perking her ears up at me as if in question.

“Laura, honey, you awake? I made breakfast!” I heard my dad call up the stairs.

“Yeah…! Coming, Dad!” I yelled, rolling onto my pillow face-first. Nala whined at me, thumping her thick tail against my bed and I stretched my hand to her ears blindly, scratching behind both of them and under her chin when I found her head. “C’mon girl, let’s get up.”

I changed my shirt before eventually making my way downstairs, flopping into a kitchen chair and laying my head on the table.

“Rought night, pumpkin?” I just groaned back at him, hearing him laugh and set a kitchen plate next to my head. Maple syrup filled my nostrils.

“Pancakes today!” I popped my head back up and smiled. Leave it to my dad to know how to make everything 100 times better.

*** 

My dad and I ended up playing a two-hour game of monopoly ever after stuffing our bellies full of pancakes and delicious hash browns. I was winning by a long-shot and let out a rather rude laugh as Dad landed on one of my more expensive properties, tapping his tiny metal bow-tie to the board. My Dr. Who-themed game board was a Christmas present from him four years ago and was by far one of my most prized possessions. I always won when we played too. I called it strategy, dad called it luck; tomato, potato. Or something. He handed me all of his fake money, lifting his hands in surrender.

“I’m out. You’ve all but robbed me again.”

“I only won by,” I paused to count my haul, “$90,525.00 of fake money. But we can totally play another round! I’ll sell you ‘The End of Time Part 2’.” I suggested happily. Dad just laughed though, leaning back and shaking his head, his arms pulling up into a stretch.

“No can do, Laur-bear. Your old man has a lot of work outside to do still today. Lawn won’t cut itself and it’s already past noon.” He smiled at me and stood up, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. “Besides, it’s a beautiful day today. Vitamin D will do my body some good.” I smiled at that, looking at the crinkles in the corners of his eyes as he responded with one of his own.

“Alright Dad, well maybe next weekend I’ll let you win.” He just winked at me as I let out a quiet laugh.

“I’ll bring you out a sandwich later, okay?” I said as I put the game away, kissing his cheek as he put his arm around my shoulder, smooshing me against him. “Thanks honey.” I watched as he headed out the screen door, Nala running to join him.

Even if I got to see him almost every weekend, I always enjoyed hanging with my dad; playing games, eating meals, watching a movie. It was just so nice and simple compared to my weeks at school stressing out over homework and exams. it was nice to have a break.

I currently attended Northern Illinois University, a pretty good college located in the northern farming area of Illinois. It was only about a 45 minute ride from home, but not having a car meant staying in a dorm, where I had to hitch a ride with my roommate most weekends. Dad worked a lot, including Saturdays, and I always felt bad asking him to come get me from school. There weren’t exactly taxis in the middle of the country and I'd yet to find a part-time job that wasn't a bartender or food deliverer. Besides, I felt a tad silly wanting to come home just to sleep in my own bed with Nala when I had a perfectly nice bed back at school. I loved school but of course my dad could read my emotions as transparently as if they’d been written across my forehead and always gave Betty gas money whenever I did come home.

After cleaning up the kitchen I went back up to my room and opened my window to let in the early summer breeze blowing, flopping on my bed with a pleasant sigh. It really was a gorgeous day. I could hear my dad trying to start the lawn mower in the shed.

Taking advantage of the wonderful afternoon weather, I closed my eyes and tried for a nap, Nala laying against my back.

We had adopted her a few years ago after I found her walking on the side of the road; she'd only been a few weeks old at the time. It only took two sets of puppy eyes, one coming from yours truly, to convince my dad to keep her; she was adorable, clumsy and absolutely irresistible. Nala was a large mutt with a beautiful coat of golden-brown color, being part golden retriever and part who-knows, and was the sweetest animal I’d ever met.

I used to bring her upstairs to sleep with me when we had first adopted her, which led into the habit of her climbing in my bed after she outgrew her case. But then it turned into more of a habit of every weekend when I was home, my dad would scold us both with a smile as she slunk down the stairs with me in the morning. She was definitely an outside dog, usually sleeping out on the porch or in the kitchen when the weather was bad, but I didn't mind. My dad on the other hand hated the dog hair all over the house, but she was a good girl. The lawnmower started up with a quiet roar.

Nightmares, if I could call them that, had been plaguing my dreams for months now, causing me horrible headaches and a subsequent awful sleeping schedule. I ended up just taking a lot of naps, usually only getting a few hours of sleep at most when I tried to sleep at night and trying to fit in some more throughout the day. Although the sun made it harder to fall asleep, it was calming compared to the eerie quiet and darkness of night that kept me awake or scared.

Dreaming of my mother had really jarred me; I had not dream of her in quite some time. It had been almost 13 years since my mother’s passing and seeing her as if she’d been alive just yesterday left my heart feeling heavy. Pushing my arms under my pillow I pulled it against me and tucked my face into it, suddenly feeling exhausted.

*** 

I woke an hour later to my phone beeping, telling me I had a text message.

_Betty 1:19 PM: Hey girl pick u up at 5?_

_Me 1:22 PM: Yes sounds perfect :)_

_Betty 1:23PM: Wanna go to the House tnight w me?! ;)_

I smiled, rolling my eyes at my roommate’s horribly-typed out text and responded.

_Me 1:24 PM: Suuure lol but we can’t stay too late!_

*** 

Once I heard the lawn mower shut off I went downstairs to make my dad and I sandwiches, pouring two glasses of iced tea before I went outside and sat on the wrap-around porch. Nala plopped down next to me and I fed her some of my crust as Dad walked over and sat on the steps beside us.

“Betty’s coming to get me in about an hour,” I commented, handing Dad his plate. He took a huge bite out of his sandwich and hummed a response. We sat on the porch finishing our lunch and afterwards played fetch with Nala until Betty pulled up our long driveway, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the shiny pearl-white of the BMW her parents had gotten her for her 21st. Don’t ask me what year it is because I couldn’t tell you if I tried.

Jogging up to her I gave her a small hug, “Thanks again for picking me up.”

“Eh, no problem roomie. Ready to go? I want to stop at our dorm and change before we go to the bar.”

“Shhh!” I half-whispered, grabbing her shoulder and steering her towards the house with me. I wasn’t yet 21, but Betty had practically begged me to let her get me a fake ID after our first semester together. It did have its perks, though I still rarely used it. I wasn’t much of a raver or party-goer or anything like that, but I did like to have fun once in a while, and Betty was definitely a fun person to go to a bar or party with. She was a cool roommate as far as roommates went, plus since she had a car she chauffeured me around a lot.

Betty grabbed my bag of clothes as I hoisted my backpack on from where I'd set them in the living room. We headed back outside and she tossed them both in the back seat of her car as I ran back to the porch, my dad waiting for me there.

“See you next weekend kiddo?” He said as I squeezed him tightly.

“Hopefully! I’ll ask if Betty wouldn't mind dropping me off again. I think she mentioned something about a family party next weekend, so she'll be coming this way anyway.” Betty’s parents lived in a town a little farther from school, but she had to practically pass my dad’s house on the way.

“Sounds good. Love you, kid. Call me when you get back okay?” I nodded and gave him another quick squeeze.

“Love you too, Dad!”

“Bye Mr. Hollis!” Betty yelled, starting the car. My ears just about exploded as I hopped into the passenger side, covering them as Betty lowered the volume. She smiled a sorry at me and I gave her an eye-roll.

“Holy Jesus. Can we _please_ not listen to your Katy Perry CD again? I know almost all the songs by heart and it disturbs me that I do,” I complained. Betty however, just laughed at me.

“C’mon Laura, my car, my music! How hard is that?” She turned the volume back up a little and we took off towards the highway. “Besides, you _know_ you like Katy Perry. Admit it!”

I laughed and gave up, singing along with her.

***

Betty all but ran into our shared dorm once she unlocked it and I lumbered behind, tossing my bags on my bed opposite hers. As I started unpacking the few clothes I’d brought home Betty all but undressed and ran to the bathroom.

“Hurry up and change, Laura! I want to get there before it starts getting dark.” I heard the sink running. “Greg is meeting me there in less than an hour! It’s open mic night.”

Dark? It's like 3:30.

“Who’s Greg?”

“He’s that guy I told you about last week!” I heard her spit and turn the faucet off. “The one with _godly_ gorgeous hair! Like a surfer?”

“That’s like every guy you date, Bet.” She tossed a cream-colored shirt in my face.

“Wear that. And whatever, it’s still true.” I just laughed and changed into what she threw at me.

 ***

Our dorm was about a 10 minute walk from the House Cafe, a little coffee shop that doubled as a bar at night located on a corner downtown. It had stained glass-looking windows on the outside, with a small bar inside for drinks and food. At the back was a small stage as well as a few steps leading to another seating area to the left of the stage. Betty and I showed our IDs to the bartender and got some beers as the first set started warming up.

Betty spotted someone she knew, Greg possibly, and I followed her to one of the booths up the steps by the stage. One of the good things about the House Café was that even though it was one of the more popular hangouts for the college kids in town, it never got too crowded, even on a weekend. Betty introduced me to the person she'd waved at who did end up being Greg, and some of his friends and we all sat in a booth together as two boys started tuning on stage, guitars in both of their hands.

After a few songs by the male indie-duo, I excused myself to the bathroom then headed back up to the bar. I'd already finished my first drink as well as the shot that Betty’s friend had ordered a round of earlier, which had happened to be delicious. It had gotten a bit busier in the cafe and there were a few more people waiting for drinks with me when I got to the bar. Leaning against the bar, I waited and looked around. I knew my fair share of my classmate,  but NIU was a gigantic school, spanning multiple buildings across half the town. Having been enrolled for almost 2 years now I had made _some_ friends besides Betty, but sometimes it was still hard to find things in common with people.

I looked over to my right, sighing with impatience. Even though it wasn't too busy, the bartender was working by himself tonight, so he was unfortunately extra slow. As I looked away from the beer he was pouring into a glass, I was met with the darkest, most brilliant pair of brown irises I’d ever seen. A girl clad in black from head to toe was looking directly at me, twirling what looked like the backwash of a dark liquid she had been drinking in a clear glass.

I looked behind me, thinking I was being paranoid, but when I turned back around her gaze was still trained on me. Maybe Betty’s idea to come here wasn’t that awful after all.

I smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear, and took a few steps so I was next to her.

“Hey,” I said, leaning an elbow on the bar beside us. She turned her body more in my direction and smirked.

“Hey,” She breathed at me, glass still being twirled. She continued to stare at me and I let out a nervous chuckle.

“What can I get for you, Miss?” I heard a deeper voice say and then noticed the bartender looking at me, waiting for a response. He must have remembered me from earlier, because he didn’t ask to see my ID again. I looked from him to my empty bottle, to the girl next to me, then back to the bartender.

“Uhhh…” I set the bottle on the bar. “Another one of these, please?”

Beautiful Staring Girl was still looking at me and I remembered her drink. “Do you want another…?” I asked, pointing towards the now-empty glass.

She shoved her glass to the edge of the bar nimbly. “Whatever you’re having, sweetheart.”

I asked the bartender for one more beer rather loudly as he had walked away and he obliged, popping the caps off them both and handing them to me. I handed him a ten-dollar bill and as I did so, noticed his name-tag.

Which read ‘Bart’. Oh my god, like ‘Bart’ender. I tried to hold in my laugh but it came out as a muffled snort.

Bart walked away, ignoring me completely as I shoved my hand on my mouth. He didn't even give me my $2.00 in change but I let it go as I didn't really deserve it and I'd just tipped him it anyway.

Staring Girl continued to stare at me but the side of her mouth lifted up slightly after hearing my unattractive laugh.

“His name!” I loudly whispered, giggling. Staring girl just quirked her eyebrow up at me, a smile playing on her lips. What the hell, Hollis.

I straightened back up and handed the girl her beer, going to take a swig of my own with my eyes staring down at the floor, internally beating myself up for being a dork in front of the beautiful creature in my presence. She was still looking at me as I swallowed and I only then noticed her hand holding the beer bottle was outstretched, waiting for me. She lifted up one eyebrow and I knocked my bottle with hers as a dark blush spread over my cheeks.

“Cheers!” I said loudly, taking a breath as she finally took a drink as well.

“I’m Laura,” I stated, deciding to rectify the name situation so Staring Girl could stop being Staring Girl.

“Carmilla,” She responded, taking another sip of beer. I looked into my own bottle and still saw the liquid came past the label still and took another gulp. “So do you go to NIU too?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“Where?” She retorted quizzically. Another band had started up on stage right then, with someone else starting to sing into the mic, making it harder to hear. Carmilla shook her head and then looked at the cell phone she had pulled from her leather jacket pocket, brow furrowing. Her jacket looked like it cost more than all my school books combined.

"It's where...here, where I go to- we go to school?" She didn't respond and seemed distracted with whatever she had read on her phone.

“Future reference, whiskey or scotch is my poison.” She, Carmilla, stated and I made a mental note, but before I could say something more or ask why she told me that supposedly impertinent information, she pushed herself away from the wooden bar. After chugging the last of her beer, Carmilla tossed the empty bottle in the small trash bin behind the bar and winked at me.

“Thanks for the drink, cupcake.” And then she disappeared into the crowd and was gone before I could blink.

Betty appeared next to me then, handing me another shot. “Laura! Greg got us more shots! I think he’s nervous about playing. Who were you talking to?” I just shook my head and downed the shot in two spurts, gagging and using my beer as a chaser. “Carmilla.”

“That's disgusting. Who?” Betty yelled rather loudly into my ear, commenting on my choice of chaser as someone tried squeezing past her and shoved her towards me.

“No one,” I responded, cringing. “When does Greg go on again?” And just like that, the subject was changed and Betty was pulling me back to the table, swaying her hips the whole way.

After a few more hours of drinking and horrible dancing, I was slouched in a booth with Betty and a different group of friends that I’d never met before, the nice ones from earlier having ditched us, but apparently Betty was good friends with them as well. She was pretty much friends with everyone when she was drinking.

I’d been unable to find Carmilla again and assumed she was long gone. I’d probably scared her off with my amazing flirting skills and what with buying her one of the cheapest beers they sold here, no doubt I'd made a grand impression. I'd sulked for a bit, but ended up enjoying myself as the evening got later and Betty and I got more alcoholic drinks into us.

She had been talking to two guys who had been buying us bothndrinks for the last hour, Greg having finished his turn on stage and leaving right after. I’d just finished my fifth or maybe sixth drink, having switched to cranberry juice and vodka, which was quickly working its way through my veins and up to my head. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I felt a dull pounding behind them, decided it was time for bed. Betty and I did still have classes tomorrow and it was going on almost 11. My lack of sleep was catching up to me as my head swam and my eyes drooped.

I made my way to the bathroom for the last time and then attempted to find my now _very_ drunk roommate who had disappeared to the dance floor again. I found her rubbing up against some guys who kept calling her ‘hottie’, none of which were people she'd talked to that night.

I pulled her towards the door. “Betty!” I called, “We should probably get going! Class starts at 8, remember?” I hollered loudly at her, barely hearing myself over the music, and hoped she could hear me. All the quieter bands were gone, and some guy with a bunch of crazy guitar solos stood at the stage, playing his heart out. I pointed outside so she might be able to understand what I was trying to say, but she just smiled and continued dancing like a crazy person, hair flying. I grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her towards closer to the door and away from the loud speakers, running into people on the way. Betty almost tripped twice so I held her more firmly as I half-dragged her out, albeit just as unsteady as she was the whole time.

“Betty, I want to go back to the dorm. I’m tired,” I whined, rubbing the side of my temple where a headache was building. She blinked and then went fishing after her clutch, successfully opening it after a few tries and looking at her phone. “C’mon Laurrr, it’s like not even midnight,” she scolded.

“I’m…drunk I think, and my head hurts. Please?” I pleaded. I so did not want to have to try to reason with a drunk Betty.

She scoffed at me. “Laura you’re such a lightweight.” Look who’s talking!? “Greg is going to walk me home anyway.” Greg??

“Greg!? He left like 2 hours ago Betty!”

“Ugh! Laura, just walk back yourself if you don’t wanna wait! I’ll see you later.” And then Betty marched back into the café, weaving her way through the small crowd rather impressively for how much she’d drank.

God, Betty pissed me off sometimes when she drank. I groaned loudly and contemplated the few options I had, the top one being walking back alone, the last somewhere along the lines of dragging Betty by her hair and getting escorted home by campus security. The campus wasn’t that far from the House Café and I’d been out at night before by myself, but I grew up in the middle of the country and I certainly didn’t want to walk back to my dorm alone in a slightly busy city that most called a 'party town'.

Ughhhh. My headache was magnifying and I figured if I sat down I would pass out. The alcohol was still very clearly in my system and probably affecting my judgement skills as I started making my way down the sidewalk back to our dorm.

There were streetlights almost the whole walk back which was slightly comforting as it was practically deserted on the streets. A light breeze blew across me, sending goosebumps down my arms and I pulled my sweater tighter, folding my arms together. As I made my way to a particularly desolated streetlight, my thoughts went back to Carmilla. I’d not been able to track her down the rest of the night and felt a little bummed about it, but figured if I saw her at a bar near campus, maybe she _lived_ on campus too. Thought she did look thoroughly confused when I'd mentioned the school. Weird.

I smiled to myself anyway and thought about what I'd done differently when I had met her.

After a few blocks I passed one of the few other bars that were in town, this one being dingy and of bad company, and heard some really awful country music escaping the open door. A young man staggered out of the establishment rather hurriedly as I got close, a flash of bright green that his shirt was the color of almost knocking into me and I sidestepped to avoid him. My head span slightly at the sudden movement. He started talking to me but I chose to ignore him and waved my hand, murmuring an apology as I started walking again. I was hoping he was too drunk to care and would go back inside and leave me be.

Apparently he wasn’t.

“Hey, I’m sorry lady. Yo listen, I just found this—thing that… Huh. Why you ignoring me?” Drunky slurred after me.

“I’m not ignoring you.” I said pointedly, turning my head and trying to walk faster as he continued to follow me.

“Hey, c’back here. I gotta show you something." No, you really don't. "A par'y trick! Wanna see?” The boy said, his words slurring together.

Please leave me alone you crazy person!

“Um, I’m good thanks.” I’d gotten to the next stoplight which was unfortunately red, one of the busier intersections that still got traffic this late at night. Mr. Drunky had caught up to me, breathing heavily. He adjusted his baseball cap and laughed shortly.

“Jeez you walk fast... C’mon, look. Ready?” And as he pointed his hand at the nearest ‘DO NOT WALK’ sign, a shot of bright blue came from his fingers, reaching the sign and making it shoot sparks and lose power. I flinched, not understanding what I just saw.

Please be the alcohol. _Please_ be the alcohol. I looked up, noticing suddenly how much taller, and _closer_ he was to me and took two steps back.

“You see that? Ya see me do that? I did that! No one believes me but _I_ did that!”

I blinked. “Are you okay?”

Drunky started talking louder and louder, repeating ‘it’s not in my head, it’s not’ repeatedly and pacing around at the stoplight, adjusting his hat continuously.

Oh my god he’s crazy. Literally.

“Um, that was uh, cool but I um—I have to get going so—“ I pointed my thumb behind me, hoping he wouldn’t follow me but he suddenly spun towards me, his right hand shooting out and grabbing my bicep harshly, pulling me closer to him. I let out a small squeak, pulling against him, my eyes widening in fear. This is why I didn’t wanna walk home alone, Betty!

“You don’t believe me either!” The boy screamed at me, frantically twitching his eyes around. My hand that wasn’t attached to the arm he was effectively squeezing the life out of gripped the phone in my pocket, flipping it open and pressing the call button twice. My phone being dinosaur-age was rather embarrassing, but it was simple enough to have the option of pressing the call button twice calling whoever I last talked on the phone with. I was hoping it was my dad. I couldn't remember who I last talked to on the phone.

I waited to hear something other than Drunky talk, he was now kind of just rambling, pulling me around as he took stumbled steps in a circle when I heard a very unfortunate noise from my pocket.

“Hold on! Hold on—yeah hello? Who is this? Oh, Laura? Laura I can’t hear you. He- _llo_? Laura I told you it’s fine, go back without me. I don’t—sure! Yeahyes! _No_ I don’t want to do the limbo right now? _No_ I—“ And the call ended.

I sadly remembered the last person I called was not my dad, but Betty, and Drunky had unfortunately heard the entire rather loud one-sided conversation from my other hand. He leaned in towards me grabbed the phone from my hand, dropping it to the ground with a small clatter.

“Who was that?”

“Uhh…” Shit. How do I negotiate with a crazy person? “My roommate, she—ah! Please let me go!” I winced as his grip got stronger, my arm starting to really hurt; it felt like there were a ton of tiny needles poking me. The streetlight near us shot more sparks that fell around us and I yelled as Drunky looked around us with panic in his eyes, which were curiously…glowing blue? I was starting to panic as he turned and started pulling me by the one arm down the side of a building.

“What’re you doing? Stop!” I tried breaking the hold he had on me, having learned a few self-defense techniques after my father insisted, but his strength almost doubled mine and my arms were starting to feel numb, my buzz certainly not helping. We rounded the back of the building and he stopped in the parking lot.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” I exclaimed, trying to detach my arm from his vice-like grip. Drunky's glowing eyes flicked to me, his face close enough to my own that I could see little blue electric lines fizzing through them, as well as smell his booze-y breath.

The hell…

My struggle against him grew more frantic then and I began looking around me, hoping for anyone or anything near enough to help. My vision was starting to blur slightly and the tingling in my arm had grown to a concerning ache. The only two lights above a door leading to the inside of the next building flickered and then exploded, glass shards littering the ground.

I screamed, turning my head away. Drunky started whispering incoherently and pulled out a phone he must have had in his own pocket. Pressing buttons, he shoved me aside and I fell roughly to the ground, my head spinning.

Alright, Laura. Let's go. Get up!

After sitting up halfway on the ground for a moment with my rear stinging, Drunky started talking loudly into his phone. I rubbed where he had been squeezing on my arm. His phone was sending off little sparks from his hand as he talked into it, saying something about drinking alcohol and something ‘wasn’t his fault’. I went to stand up and failed, my attempt at making a break for it failing along miserably when I heard someone clear their throat from behind me. Drunky was still being a loudmouth on the phone and was therefore oblivious for another moment.

“What’s going on here, hmm?”

And there standing behind me in her gorgeous leather jacket, with the moon casting her silhouette in the most devastating way, was Carmilla.

Drunky stiffened at her words, dropping his phone to the ground like a hot coal as smoke rose from the device, blue flames shooting up a second after. His panicked eyes shot from to me and back to her with a harsh glare.

“Leave me alone lady!” Drunky yelled, glancing at his phone again only just noticing it was fried.

“I see you got my message earlier, Derek.” Carmilla said, picking at her nails with a bored expression. “Ah, well, it all ends the same either way I guess. Sorry to interrupt your wooing-fest, but we need to go.”

“I don’t care who ya are or who you’re with, but y'better leave me alone bitch.” The boy, now named Derek, yelled and slurred at the same time. Carmilla just smirked at him, her bangs almost covering her eyes with her head bent down.

“Oh, Derek Derek…why must you be a difficult one? I don’t want to chase you, really I don’t.” She made it sound like that was _exactly_ what she wanted to do. Wait, chase? Was I being chased too? Should I get up? My mind cleared long enough for me to try to gain an upper hand in the situation, if only so I could ensure I could get back to my dorm and out of this insane fiasco.

“Hey guys! Hi? I don’t want to get in the middle of anything so uh, let’s just all go home, okay? Or maybe talk about this over...coffee?” I tried to maneuver my way to a standing position, my arms shaky and not helping much. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew I did not want to be any closer to drunk-and-possibly-crazy Derek here, so I took a breath and pushed off the ground.

Standing up was apparently the wrong choice, because as soon as I was upright I swayed.

“I think I’ll take my chances with a chase,” I heard Derek say, seeing electric-blue surrounding his pupils again even though I was at least a few feet from him. A bolt of electricity, similar to a lightning bolt, shot out of one of his hands and flew towards Carmilla, which she easily dodged. At the same time he'd latched onto my swaying body, fingers digging painfully into my shoulder as I felt a electricity go through me from where his palm touched.

Carmilla shot forward then and everything seemed to move in slow motion. More shocks went from Derek’s tight hold, running through my bones, my veins. My head swam and slowed. My vision blurred. I vaguely remembered the alcohol from earlier and thought about puking but also begged myself not to, it really was disgusting. Derek began dragging me backwards with his arm around me, his other hand pointing straight towards Carmilla, screaming at her to stay away. Maybe he's Zeus' son?

I put my hands on his arm to pull it off, the movement seeming to take hours, only managing to hold my hands on his arm as another shockwave went through me. “S-stop—“ I tried to say, but it came out all funny and slow, my knees bending involuntarily. We were heading further away from Carmilla and I tilted my head up, hoping my eyes were sending pleading messages to her as her image wavered in front of me.

“Leave me alone!” I heard Derek yell, though it sounded so far away.

I smelled something burning and I gagged, feeling much closer to all my meals being upchucked at that exact moment.

I let out a dry heave and then I was on the ground, my body slumping to the side as I watched Carmilla land with a smack against Derek's chest, a sharp, thin hand against his throat with the other holding something long and silver. It was arced directly on his neck.

“Make one move, Sparky, _one,_ ” She spat.

I laid on the pavement for a moment before finally feeling the effects of tonight coming up. I twisted my neck as the most horrendous bile that had ever left my throat come pouring out, dry heaving and everything in between. My body was shaking, spasms coursing through my body, and I was pretty sure I was throwing up in my hair when suddenly soft hands were pulling me up and brushing my hair away from my face. I made a quiet whimper when my now-raw shoulder touched cold leather and Carmilla’s face came into focus in front of me, though it was a little crooked from her position.

“Hey cupcake, I’ve got you. You’re okay, hmm?” I heard her say. I was so dizzy. She was smoothing my hair back from my face, so close to me now as I continued to throw up. I hoped she wasn't touching some of the puke hair.

I tried to speak to her after the next breather, but it only came out as a dry heave mixed with a sob. She said something else to me, but I couldn’t hear her. I looked into her now pitch-black eyes and felt a tear roll down the side of my face, my body starting to shake. She yelled something behind her and then the world swam again. I felt myself lifted off the ground in one quick swoop, strong arms under my knees and around my back.

Why does my shoulder hurt so bad? I couldn’t remember hurting it. Where was Betty?

My head lolled against Carmilla's jacket and I squeezed my eyes tight, hoping to alleviate the headache I still had. Whoever Carmilla was, I trusted her enough to help me and I prayed that it wasn’t the wrong decision. The cold leather of her jacket was replaced by the leather of a car and a door slamming closed beside me; I was in a car. I squinted my eyes open to look outside through the window and saw Carmilla talking to someone I didn’t know, Derek face-down on the ground beside her. The spasms from earlier that had invaded my body were still threading their way out, pain sending tears to my eyes whenever they reached my right shoulder. Carmilla locked eyes with me for a moment before saying something to her friend who had apparently driven the car before they got into the front seat as Carmilla easily dragged Derek from the pavement to the back of the car we were in, tossing him in the back like a rag doll.

The trunk had barely slammed shut before Carmilla was suddenly in the passenger seat, slamming her own door with more force than was necessary.

“Ready, kitty?” The driver said. There was no response as I felt the car lurch forward and then I was falling into darkness.

 


	2. Entering the Stratosphere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Carmilla takes Laura to Silas. Hope you like it! Leave me a comment with your thoughts!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REWROTE CHAPTER ONE D: So if you didn't re-read that, you should. :)  
> Carmilla's POV this chap.

I watched the trees fly by as William sped down one of the deserted country roads, the green wooded areas passing us in splotches. Miles of fields surrounded us, all tilled and seeded for summer.

I looked in the backseat of the car again and shook my head. God, I’m an idiot.

Will glanced over, “Something on your mind?” I let out a breathy laugh but did not answer.

“So what’s with the pet then?” I glanced in the back seat to Laura again, passed out and drooling on the leather before meeting his judgemental stare.

“Sparky McGee did a number on her shoulder back there. I couldn’t leave her drunk and passed out on the pavement with a giant hand print imprinted in her damn shoulder.” I turned to look back out my window.

"But she wasn't on the list-"

"It doesn't matter, William."

"Carmil-

"I said it doesn't matter. I'll take care of it."

Smartly, he shut up and left his questions of our unexpected guests unvoiced. This was going to be such a fucking mess when we got back to Silas.

The tinted glass on the windows made it hard to see exactly where we were, but it was clear we were still in the United States. I was glad I’d asked Will along instead trying to shove two unconscious people and myself in a car unnoticed and use the teleportation device attached to the SUV. The portable ones never lasted very long and I could never figure that piece of crap out. Will may be a dick at times, but he was reliable when it came to getaway drivers.

I knew that the medical resources we had at the university were superior to anything any of the hospitals in the states had but as far as I knew, Laura was just a normal human. Normal as in no supernatural powers, mutated body parts or enhanced skills of any kind. Although she would be fine either way, I wanted to make sure our good friend Derek hadn't injured her more than a small burn to her arm. Her potentially finding us out and exposing us was the lesser risk than an entire hospital, and we could get her patched up and back home much faster.

And hopefully no one found out she was human.

Before I could change my mind, I felt the jeep slow. Will flipped his visor down, his eyes flashing a bright yellow through the mirror as they flicked to me.

“Ready?” I waved my hand lazily while slipping a pair of sunglasses on. It would be daylight on the other side of the world.

Tapping an orange button on his visor, a bright blue light sputtered through the top of the front windshield like a bad signal on an old TV and hues of green and blue appeared ahead, forming a fuzzy painted-looking landscape. A moment after speeding straight through, we were no longer in the dark wooded farmland of the United States, but in the wooded forests of southern Styria, Austria. The sun shone brightly in the late morning sky. Will pressed the orange button again to close the portal then turned the radio on to some sort of German morning talk show. I leant my head against the window, finally relaxing.

I’d spent the last four days enjoying my mini-vacation of a mission, visiting bars and the ‘cool hangouts’ of the college town I’d been forced to stay in, all while keeping vague tabs that had been my current mark, Derek. Things had blown a little out of proportion when I’d received a text from William earlier yesterday evening kindly letting me know that Derek was getting plastered off his ass at a nearby bar and that we had to ‘intervene’, else he blow up a gas station or something. Begrudgingly, I’d gone to collect the idiot but had taken my sweet time doing so. Had I known my procrastination had meant getting the tiny human hurt, I would have maybe gone to stop Derek from himself with a tad more haste. Maybe.

Meeting Laura had been a surprise. She was very cute. And although she wasn’t the first person to have caught my interest at a bar in the middle of nowhere, I wished I could have stayed longer, if for nothing else then to enjoy her quirkiness. And now she was passed out in the backseat of my car, talking in her sleep with puke still in her hair. I closed my eyes, my head a jumble of nerves and irritation, both at myself and the situation _._

My assignment had been to basically observe the beefcake, take notes and bring him back to Silas where he’d be evaluated on his abilities, along with his sanity, and who knows what else after writing a report up based on what I observed. My assignment who was currently sleeping off a ridiculous amount of sedatives in the trunk had not only drank way more than was safe for his weight, but had also almost exposed himself to the public. Not to mention almost killing Laura. The amount of media that would have brought would have been astounding and surely gotten me jailed or killed or something for allowing it to happen.

Being electrocuted is one thing, but having an idiot like Derek, someone who so obviously abused his powers and had very little control over them, get plastered and use them on someone else to cause harm? It was ridiculously dangerous and the worst part is that I could have 100% prevented it. Or at least prevented it on being someone who wasn't myself or William.

Normally if someone is electrocuted, they might pass out, have a small burn, maybe have some inner body malfunctions, but nothing about this was normal. It wasn’t like touching an electric socket or struck by lightning. Laura had essentially been pulsated with at least 2 rounds of electricity and who even knows how strong it was. She’d also ingested a good amount of alcohol, seeing as she had vomited all over the pavement. It probably wasn’t doing much in masking the pain she was in, but it was still a factor and would be if she responded to the healing process.

I looked back at Laura again. She had been moving around for a while now and her face cringed in pain as her shoulder, now starting to blister,  continued to rub against the leather of the seat. I pursed my lips.

“How much further, Will?” I asked, sitting up straighter to keep myself awake; it was almost ten in the morning in Austria and I was tired as shit.

“Almost there, Kitty,” He responded leisurely, but I still noticed the speedometer go past 80.

“You don’t want to say good morning to Maman?” He teased.

“Fuck you.” He gave me a hearty laugh.

My mother would be on campus early today, being the Dean and all, and I desperately did _not_ want to recount my last few days to her in person. I pulled out a crumpled stack of folded papers in my jacket pocket and started working on my report I was supposed to have written.

I really hoped this didn’t bite me in the ass later.

*** 

We pulled into the long driveway at a quarter after ten, curving around the huge wooden sign that spelled ‘Silas University’ in capitalization. I rubbed the spot on my head that had hit the side of my own window, cursing loudly as the two occupants in the back end of the jeep both made equal sounds of pain and irritation. I secretly hoped Sparky back there had some bruises to find when he woke up.

Will laughed, taking another sharp turn through the short path through the trees up to the school. “There _are_ seat belts, you know.”

“ _Yes_ , little brother, I know,” I growled, gritting my teeth in annoyance.

As Will rounded the last cluster of pine trees, I jumped on the middle console, balancing on my toes and gripped Laura’s good shoulder to prop her into a sitting position. I had tried waking her a few minutes earlier, but she barely showed any indication of reception at all from my shaking and slapping other than mumbling incoherently and making faces when her shoulder would rub against the car.

Will slammed on the brakes, shoved the car into park and hopped out of the car, opening the door beside Laura to grab her roughly from where I’d sat her. He attempted to stand her up but ended up whacking her head against the sharp corner of the car door in the process.

“Careful, you idiot!” I hissed, shoving my report in my pocket and leaping out after her.

“There’s no point giving her a concussion on top of it all before we’ve even walked through the doors.” Laura’s body sagged as he shook her, trying to get her to wake up and stand. I pulled out my work phone, holding the 3 button as I slammed the car door closed behind me.

“Give it up, dude. She’s smashed," Will said before all but shoving Laura in my arms. Not a moment later and he was at the trunk of the Jeep, opening it up. Oh right, Sparky McGee. Will threw him out of the trunk, closing the back end and picking the goon up fireman-style.

“Unless you wanna switch?”

I rolled my eyes and hoisted Laura into my arms. “No thanks.”

My forgotten phone in my right hand buzzed, voices fading through it as I continued to hold Laura to me. A blush crossed my cheeks as her breath touched my exposed neck. She had started to shiver, moaning quietly; her skin felt oddly cold and I tried not to touch her shoulder too much. We _were_ in the middle of the forest in Europe but it was the beginning of summer, and certainly wasn’t cold out. I began walking faster toward the side door.

“Hello? Hello, this is the Health Center, is someone there?”

“There’s no one there, Cam! Hang up!”

“They wouldn’t have called this number by accident, stupid! Hello is someone there? He-lloooo?”

“ _Cameron_! They would have responded by now if—“

“Fuck! Yes! Yes, I’m here!” I yelled into the phone as I pressed the button to put the voices on speaker. “Please shut up! I’ve got a situation out here, two civilians, one injured, the other in custody and—“

“I told you someone was there! Hi, who is this? You have who with you? I—“

“CAM. SHUT. UP.” There was some fumbling around and a loud ‘hey!’ shouted. “Meet us at entrance 8 in thirty seconds.” Said a stern female voice, and the phone line went dead before I could say anything else.

I hung up and shoved the phone in my back pocket, using my knee to hold Laura to me for a moment. I looked towards Will, who had been struggling with Derek causing sparks to appear near his fingers, which were unfortunately right by Will’s face. I nodded my chin towards the entrance the voice has specified we meet at.

A man and a woman both wearing scrubs ran out of the side of the brick building then, the man pushing a small gray wheelchair. I ran to them, holding Laura tight to me with Will at my heels.

“Ms. Karnstein, I’m Doctor Moore. I was on the phone with you a few moments ago I believe?” The woman, Doctor Moore, said, obviously knowing me. She put on a pair of glasses that had been hanging around her neck and pulled a small flashlight out of her shirt pocket. I met her a few feet from the door, nodding.

“Yes, she was hit by multiple electric charges,” I glanced back at Will who was now unceremoniously dumping Derek onto the wheelchair. The other doctor, assumedly Cam, gave William a wide-eyed stare before he started pushing the chair. I continued my brief summary to the woman doctor, “Her shoulder was burned pretty bad and her body’s gotten cold and she’s been unconscious awhile. She passed out after and...”

Dr. Moore shone her little flashlight in Laura’s eyes, going back and forth after holding each eyelid open. “Any abilities I should be aware of?” She said to me, snapping in front of Laura’s face before taking her wrist. She looked at the watch on her own wrist, counting as she took Laura’s pulse. “Ms. Karnstein?”

I focused my eyes back on her. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Her abilities, what are they?” Dr. Moore said to me pointedly.

“I…” She doesn’t have any though…I don’t think? Laura showed absolutely zero signs that she was anything but a normal human being, which was precisely the reason I had to keep that little tidbit of information private. There was a pause between the Doctor and I before I cleared my throat.

“I’m not sure. She was drunk and pretty out of it. She wasn’t technically my mark but I’d appreciate if you could do your job?” The Doctor took that as answer enough, dropping her glasses back around her neck. 

“Follow me.” Dr. Moore said, striding away in a snap as we made our way quickly to the back entrance which was located at the end of the hospital wing. She started yelling to her coworker, who had busied himself with administering another narcotic of some sort to Derek’s bloodstream. He and William followed us through the same doors but turned down the opposite hallway.

I kept up with Dr. Moore, glad I’d chosen to just carry Laura since it was faster but still unsure of why I’d not just dumped her and let the doctor do the rest. Oh well. We were at the hospital wing of Silas and Laura would be in good hands here, but I couldn’t help but think that maybe she already _was_ in good hands as I looked down at her face pressed against my collarbone. The thought flitted away seconds later.

Finally we entered a room that looked much more like an area where one could do surgery and other medical things to save lives. Three tall metal beds sat in the middle of the room spaced a few feet from each other, with thin-looking mattresses covering the top of them. Dr. Moore went to one of the cupboards nearby as I laid Laura on the closest bed, hearing the doctor opening and closing doors at random and doing the same with drawers beneath the counter. She walked back to us, pulling a cart full of medical supplies and instruments.

The smell of burnt skin filled my nostrils for the umpteenth time and I scrunched up my nose, petting Laura’s dirty hair away from where it was stuck on her mouth until the sound of metal clinking against each other made me turn. Situating herself next to Laura’s side, Dr. Moore gave me a long stare. “Was there anything else, Ms. Karnstein?”

I shook my head, both answering her and clearing my thoughts. “No.”

She nodded and I walked back out the double two-way doors.

*** 

I made my way down the health center hallways, eventually finding myself standing in the middle of the main front entrance to Silas. A huge carpeted staircase led upstairs and I climbed up them slowly, pausing at the top to pull out my phone that was ringing. A few students came down the hall, walking faster as they passed me. I took a small breath.

“Yeah?”

“Hey.”

“What is it William?” I growled angrily, exhaustion making my irritation escalate. I guess he had already dumped Derek with the male doctor and left.

“Mother wants to speak to you. About…” There was a pause, my boot tip scuffing the ground as I hummed. I heard a clatter from the other end and then heard my mother’s voice came through the speaker harshly.

“ _Now_ , Carmilla.”

I cursed under my breath as they hung up.

Well, this was going to be fun.

*** 

Walking into my mother’s office was always nerve-wracking, but I’d learned long ago that there was just no pleasing her. So instead I tried my very hardest to not care about anything and everything, especially if it mattered to her; it made things more interesting.

I knocked lightly on the door frame as both William and my mother’s eyes shot up to mine. I leaned against the door frame, putting on my best no-fucks-given face. “You rang?”

Will rolled his eyes from where he sat on Mother’s desk as she cleared her throat, straightening up from where she had been leaning against her desk.

“Carmilla, you were gone for four days. _Four days._ What on earth were you doing?”

“Playing fetch.” Will let out a sharp laugh. Mother swatted him in the back of the head as she continued.

“Carmilla, your job is to locate the mark assigned to you and bring them back to the university. _Immediately_. Not dawdle around for a week, wasting my time!” Her voice had grown to almost a shout as she chastised me, smacking her hand on the desk. I fixed my eyes on an invisible speck of dirt near my toes, hoping she’d be done soon so I could finally go to bed.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” I sent a hard stare to just behind her head and she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“William, you may leave us.” Will hopped off the mahogany desk happily, giving me a thumbs-up as I gave him a more obscene gesture involving my middle finger. Mother motioned for me to sit, which I eventually did in front of the large mahogany desk, the chair much too large for my smaller frame. I sank into the old velvet as the door closed slowly with a click.

Mother eventually took a seat in her own chair and asked for my report, which I pulled out of my pocket. She narrowed her eyes as it lifted off the desk to hang in the air in front of her, the smell of rum wafting off a stain on the ripped and wrinkled pages.

“I see you had some fun while you were away.” I shrugged, folding my arms. A piece of hair fell over my eyes and I left it.

“Carmilla, you have one job, just one. You don’t go to classes. You aren’t here to teach. You aren’t here to learn. The _only_ reason you are here is for me. I didn’t spend 21 years raising you so you could party like a ridiculous baboon. You are to bring me my marks as promised. In a timely manner, without involving yourself with the humans.”

Raising, uh huh. I picked a rock from the bottom of my boots.

“Start doing what I raised you for. Do you understand me?”

I sighed. “Yeah. May I go?” God, she treats humans like they’re worms. I congratulated myself on keeping Laura's identity a secret.

Mother’s silence lasted until the phone on her desk beeped, signaling a caller on the other line. I stood to leave and took half a step before I was thrown against the wall beside the door, my feet dangling inches from the ground much like my wrinkled report. Mother’s eyes shone menacingly into mine as she stalked towards me with a snarl, ignoring the phone call. I heard her take a long breath, twisting my face to the side with her long fingers and running her nose from my neck to my ear. The invisible weight on my chest keeping me eye-level with her was making it almost impossible to breathe.

“You think I can’t smell the human on you?” I gulped, my eyes watering from the pressure. She can’t have known about Laura; Will wouldn’t have said anything... He didn't know...? I squeezed my eyelids together, hoping that she’d not care to figure out Laura’s scent and drop it.

I let out a choked cough. “Maman…please—“

“Don’t disappoint me again because next time I won’t be so lenient.” With a flick of her wrist I was dropped to the floor, having enough grace to land on my feet. I reached the handle and pulled the door open, running out of her office while heaving in copious amounts of air.

I heard the door slam behind me and knowing she wasn’t following, clutched at my chest with a clenched fist and stinging eyes.

*** 

I hated my mother.

Literally, hated. That might be a strong word, but so were her invisible claws that dug into me, tearing me apart from the inside at times.

Sure, she ‘raised’ me, gave me life and food and water and all that. But I was nothing but an object to her. Something or someone for her to kick and push around, scream at, play with. I never understood her game, her reasons or actions and why she did what she did; I had learned to not ask questions about anything when I was little.

She thought since she raised me that I was her pet; that I was just a ‘thing’ for her to push around and do her bidding. She paid for nannies and tutors to be at the house when Will and I were younger, and as we got older it was to train us. She’d take us on assignments she had, showing us all sorts of people with powers or extraordinary abilities and as we hit our teenage years, taught us to hunt.

My cell phone rang in my pocket and I threw it to the wall as I opened the door to my room, a large dent appearing where the phone hit the wall before falling to the floor. Fuck _._

At least the ringing had stopped. I grabbed whatever bottle of alcohol was closest to me on the television stand and poured myself a full glass. Southern Comfort burned my nostrils and I hummed appreciatively as it ran down my throat. I didn’t bother locking my door. I knew no one would come in here if they knew I was home. There were a few perks for being the scary Dean’s equally-scary daughter. My microwave blinked 11:45 AM and I didn’t even bother to walk up the stairs to my bed as I drained the rest of the liqueur and fell on my couch face first, closing my eyes.

*** 

Waking up was my least favorite thing to do when the cause was my cell phone blasting the most annoying ringtone in my overly-sensitive ears. I must have done something to it after chucking it into a wall, as the tone it was currently spewing at was so high-pitched I cringed. I curled into the couch, shoving my ear against the suede as I attempted to cover the other ear with the palm of my hand.

Unfortunately, not answering only provoked the mystery caller to repeat the action three more times. On the fourth ring I gave up and stomped to the corner of my living room, picking up my now-cracked phone and answering without bothering to see who was calling.

“Jesus fuck _, what?”_

“Whoa, don’t bite my head off too. It’s me. Hey so listen, so you know that girl you brought in this morning? The one with the burn on her shoulder? Well she was all hurt and sore and maybe a little drunk still, but you know, Dr. Moore fixed her up last night because that’s what she does. Well anyway she, the girl, woke up and well uh—“

“Get to the point…” 

“Right! She started asking questions about a girl named Betty and where she was once the anesthesia the doc gave her wore off. I didn’t know how to answer her and because well, I don’t know wh—“

“LaFontaine!” I shouted. My microwave blinked 4:26 PM.

“She’s threatening to stab me with a pair of scissors unless you come down here. Can you please get over here before I lose a limb?”

“What the hell…”

***

Shouts filled the halls in the Health Division of the school, the commotion getting louder as I glided down the same hall from this morning. What the hell did they give her? Sleep still clouded my vision as I rounded the correct doorway.

“I _demand_ to see whoever is in charge here!”

“You really don’t want to do that—“

“Don’t tell me what I want! Now someone better start answering some of my questions o—“

“Or you’ll go all ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ on us?” Standing in the doorway, I had to hold in a laugh at the site before me. Laura was currently standing with her small bed rolled in front of her, a pair of surgical scissors gripped in the hand that wasn’t hanging in a sling, and was in the middle of a shouting match with two very scared-looking students who were probably second-guessing their major. I was trying hard not to laugh at the sight but a smile ghosted my lips anyway. Laura apparently didn’t join in my humorous opinion, instead sending me the most ridiculous nonthreatening glare I’d ever seen.

She took a deep breath. “You! C-Carmilla! You’re here!”

“Looks to be that way,” I glanced at the scissors slowly. “You should see yourself, cupcake. You look like a tiny, angry slayer.” I forced her eyes to follow mine and she had the decency to look guilty, dropping her hand to her side but not letting the scissors go. I cleared my throat.

“You two,” I pointed to the two students against the wall, “leave, now.” They didn’t even think twice and ran from the room, flinging the door shut on their way out. LaFontaine stood in the back of the room near the white cupboards, speaking quietly into a phone. “You called me for this?” They gave me an apologetic look as they continued their hushed conversation.

I walked next to her and hopped on the marble counter, pulling my left leg up to rest my chin on.

“Carmilla, what’s going on?” I heard Laura ask me.

I shrugged and gave her a stare. “That _is_ your name, isn’t it?” She scoffed.

I gave her a smile. “Of course. Why would I lie?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“What?”

“Where am I?” Laura then stated, her grip tightening around the scissors again. This girl made no damn sense.

“A hospital room?” I tapped my finger to the top of my right hand, mimicking her hand attached to the sling where she had an IV in. She must not have noticed until now because her eyes grew wider and began picking at it nervously, ripping the tape off. She paused at the needle in her vein.

LaFontaine cleared their throat at Laura’s silence. “I tried explaining to her that she was in Silas’ hospital division but I don’t think it came out reassuringly. She tried to stab one of the interns with their own pen before seeing the scissors.”

Why were there scissors next to her? I couldn’t help the laugh that flew out of my mouth, and Laura’s cheeks turned pink despite the slight panic she seemed to be going through.

“Where’s Dr. Moore? Wasn’t she supposed to be,” I waved my hand vaguely, “saving her life or whatever?”

“Her shift ended an hour ago. Those two boneheads you sent running with their tails between their legs were supposed to be her replacements but when Crazypants woke up and tried to kill us all—“

“I did _not_ try to kill you.”

“You threw a metal tray at my head!”

“Well I wouldn’t have had to if—“

“Alright, stop, before I murder _both_ of you. Laura, put down those damn scissors before I stab you with them myself.” She looked down at them and gingerly set the scissors on the metal cart to her left after I sent her a death glare. LaFontaine had gotten off the phone and was just staring at me silently, waiting to see what I was going to do, I supposed.

“Good. Well now that you woke me up for fucking nothing…” I ran my fingers through my hair. This was ridiculous. _  
_

“Carm—Carmilla, why am I here? Why do I have my arm in a gigantic white sling? And…and why do I have a needle in my hand…and…” I looked up as her rambling slowed. Laura had her hand resting on her bandaged shoulder, staring off into space.

“Can I talk to you a sec?” LaFontaine said to me. I nodded, following them to the door. Laura continued to stare off into nowhere after I told her we’d be right back.

After closing the door, I was pulled close to LaFontaine with papers in front of my face.

“What kind of freak did you bring in this time, Karnstein?”

I pulled away from them, straightening my hopelessly-wrinkled shirt. “Excuse me?”

“I know she wasn’t your mark. And judging by how much you _didn’t_ tell Dr. Moore, you have no idea what she’s even got hidden in her.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re going on about, but you need to shut it," I whispered harshly, "If anyone finds out she’s human, I’m dead. Go take samples from my mark that electrocuted her if you must!” I was met with a dropped jaw.

“You kidding me? You’re kidding. You don’t even—no, wait. You literally have _no_ clue? Oh, this is great!” The papers were now fluttering all over the place as they started pacing.

I grabbed the neck of their shirt. “Talk to me, science geek.”

“You do know you literally _can’t_ bring a human onto the Silas grounds, right? At least, not without alerting half the main office anyway. As well as J.P. and I. There’re enough safety measures to block out a freaking fly, let alone allow a human to stumble onto the property. And you think you could drive one right on up through the front gate?”

I opened my mouth to speak but stopped, and really thought about what they were saying. If bringing a human alerted the school, then surely they would know about Laura. My _mother_ would know about Laura. I whipped my head back up to LaFontaine.

“Is that why you’re here? You’re saying you and half the school know I brought a human here?” I half-whispered in fear.

“No. Not at all. Actually, the complete opposite. No one knows because you didn’t.”

I blinked. LaFontaine continued.

“I’m here because I do the testing on the marks. I’d finished with your actual mark Derek an hour ago and had come to just run some standard tests on Laura, seeing as Dr. Moore had pretty much zero information on her. I ended up running her blood into my DNA test, a new process I invented that can tell just by a drop of blood if someone is human or not.” They paused, raising their eyebrow at my bored expression when they’d been hoping for more enthusiasm. “Want to know what Laura _isn’t?_ ”

“Making me want to strangle this information out of you?” I replied snidely, which they chose to ignore.

“Human, Karnstein. She is most _definitely_ not human. I don’t know where you got her, but good work. I’ll need to run some more tests on her before I can confirm much else, but her readings were higher than anyone else I’ve tested so far. Including Perry,” They stopped, tapping a spot on one of the papers in their hand.

“Are you sure? Like, sure as in you’re 100% not pulling my leg? Because I swear, if you’re wrong—“

“This is me you’re talking to, about science. The tests don’t lie, Carmilla. She’s something alright. Good thing you brought her in, too. Her powers seem to have just started showing signs and if the tests are any indication, she’s going to need a lot of help controlling them if they're this powerful already.”

I hummed, remembering how powerful the geek’s gal pal was and smiled to myself.

This just got a lot more interesting.


	3. New Point of View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura gets a brief insight to where she is and more time spent with our grumpy vampire who isn't really a vampire here.  
> Make room for Laf! And Perry :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3! I hope it makes sense and conveys what I was trying to put into words. Let me know what you think! Love ya creampuffs!
> 
> Laura's POV again!

It came back to me in a rush, as if suddenly remembering a dream. The café, Betty, alcohol, Carmilla, walking home, and then that guy… It still didn’t click in my brain exactly what happened, probably because it didn’t seem real. People can’t shoot electricity from their hands. That’s impossible.

I looked back at the door Carmilla and the redhead exited, hoping she’d come back but after a moment of silence, I could still only hear my own heartbeat.

My left hand rested on my shoulder, the pain that should probably have been there was numbed. The tube that was connected to the IV in my hand was tugged from my movement and I grimaced, taking the scissors from earlier and cutting the clear tube near the end. I was too afraid to pull it out but whatever it was pumping into my veins, I didn’t want. I didn’t trust this place or any of their mysterious medicine. Clear liquid started spilling on the ground near my feet.

I walked over to the door and went to open it but the handle only shook slightly as I realized it was locked. Damn them. I kicked the bottom of the door angrily and walked around the bright room, looking around mainly for a phone. There were white cabinets both on the walls and floor at the back of the room, with matching drawers under the white countertops. There were metal tools you’d typically find in a hospital lying everywhere, and I noticed a garbage can near the bed I had woken up on filled with gauzes and napkins with blood spotted over them. I paled and took a seat on the ground with my back against the cabinets.

This was insane. I should be at school, at NIU, in my History class right about now. I didn’t even know what day it was. Was it still Monday? Tuesday? How long had I been…wherever I was? Silas? I noticed that I was still wearing the same clothes I’d had on Sunday night and immediately checked both my pockets for my cell phone but was disheartened to only find lint. I flicked it to the ground angrily, purposely keeping my attention away from the bloody mess in the garbage can. I thought of my dad; I could only imagine how worried he was. He always called me, every day and I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking or doing right now. There might be milk cartons with my face on them by now. The ridiculous thought made me laugh and my heart hurt.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, my good arm on top, and laid my head against it. I had no clue where I was and the only person I knew was freaking Carmilla, Miss Grumpy-Secretive-and-Broody, who’d probably gone out the door to whisper conspiratorially how small a body bag they’d need after they poisoned me with their clear liquid. Maybe if I went back to sleep, I’d wake up from this dream in my bed at home, with Nala squishing my feet and my dad making pancakes. Maybe this was just another one of my nightmares and it had just gotten a lot more realistic than before.

My stomach growled loudly in protest to my pancake wish at the same time the door opened back up and I lifted my head to see Carmilla at the heels of the red-haired doctor from before. They both looked at me for a moment before the ginger one came and took a seat right on the floor in front of me, a large smile on their face.

“So, Laura right?” I blinked as a hand was thrust in front of me. “I’m LaFontaine. They, them and their pronouns preferred please. It’s nice to meet you in a less threatening situation.” They said happily as I shook the proffered appendage, noticing it was their left so as to match my good arm I extended. They continued to hold my hand and smile at me for almost a whole minute before I gave them a small one back.

Maybe I needed to be happy and fattened up before they murdered me. They...? They leaned back, running their fingers through their ginger-colored hair.

“Much better. So, Laura, why are you on the floor?”

The heck kind of question was that?

“Uhh…what kind of question is that?”

“An easy one, obviously.” This LaFontaine person was weird.

I shrugged and picked more lint out of my pocket. “The door was locked.”

There was a hum as some papers were set to their side on the ground. I noticed Carmilla had climbed onto one of the metal beds and had her jacket over her face. Is she sleeping? Honestly…

“So anyway, as I was telling Carmilla here,” there was a wave towards the black lump on the bed, “that you’re healing remarkably well. Do you know what happened?”

“Happened when?”

“Last night, of course. Do you remember anything? I found some alcohol in your system because I tested your blood and JP and I also found uh—well, anyway. So tell me, how did you get here?”

So it was Monday then. That's good to know. I stared at them then, my anger starting to trickle back. “Are you _kidding?_ ” There was a loud ‘shhh!’ from the lump that was Carmilla, and LaFontaine and I sent her equally-annoyed looks. Did I really flirt with this grump?

“Look, just talk to me Laura. I’m here to help you, really.” LaFontaine said, straightening the collared shirt they wore. I huffed.

“I don’t know how I got here. In a car, maybe? I was at a café last night with my roommate just hanging out; I go to school nearby. That’s where I met Carmilla. We were meeting some of Betty's, my roommate, her friends to listen to music and stuff. I left to walk home after a while, got ambushed by some drunk kid with a trucker hat and…” I paused, scrunching my eyebrows together. It would sound even crazier if I said it out loud.

“Who shot electricity out of his hands and burned you?” LaFontaine stated, pointing their pen towards my shoulder.

“Uh…yeah…” I touched my shoulder again and looked at them. Apparently they were just as crazy as I was. “This is a burn?” They nodded, scribbling something on their pile of papers before standing up.

“Think of it like sunburn. Electricity burns the skin when it touches you, and leaves a burn and sometimes blisters too. You’ll be fine in a couple of days, though. Normally it would take a few weeks to heal something like that. You got good blood, Laura. Anyway, I have to check on a few things before we continue. I’ll be right back, okay?” They handed me a bottle of pills they pulled from a cabinet near their head after standing up. Good blood? “Take one of those, too. You didn’t finish the medicine from your IV so you’ll probably be feeling that shoulder in a few hours.” I took the bottle shoved towards me and pocketed it as LaFontaine headed to the door.

“I have to go talk to Perry real quick; she’s the head counselor here at Silas. She’ll help you with classes and where to stay and all that. I have to let her know you’re here though. So uh, stay here and I’ll be right back.” They had their hand on the doorknob, waiting for me to respond. A quick glance was afforded to the lump of Carmilla before they left.

“Sure,” I said quietly as the door closed with a click. I wondered what they meant about helping me with my classes, but put that thought aside as I was looking forward to an actual bed to sleep in. I doubted I would be getting home until at least tomorrow, seeing as my way here was taking a catnap five feet away and didn’t look willing to bring me anywhere anytime soon. My stomach growled again as I looked at the bottle in my hand and wished I had food to eat with it. It was only ibuprofen, after all. It said so on the bottle.

Maybe they weren’t trying to kill me. Yet.

Carmilla pulled her jacket up then, peeking a tired eye at me. “Hungry cupcake?” My stomach grumbled again at the thought of cupcakes and I looked to her visible eye, her face shadowed under the leather coat she held above it.

“Yeah actually. What time is it? I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week.”

She slowly sat up and folded the jacket over her arm. “It’s only 4:00 PM or so. It’s also still Monday, in case you were wondering.” I nodded. She must have really been sleeping; hadn't we just figured this out?

"Thanks..." I shifted my body and watched the IV in the top of my hand move around my tendons as I wiggled my fingers.

‘Come here’ I heard Carmilla say and I looked to see her patting the spot to her right.

I stood and walked over hesitantly. Carmilla might or might not be the most beautiful person I’d ever seen who I flirted with, but I definitely did not trust her. The bed was rather low, so her eyes came to my chin as I stood next to her, debating if I wanted to actually sit beside her or not.

“I don’t bite too hard,” She said with a smirk, lifting one dark eyebrow that contrasted to the pale skin that ran across her body. Her eyes were just as dark, a deep cacao brown that blended into her pupil. Her hair that had seemed almost black in the café last night was most definitely a dark brown, the bright hospital-looking room’s lights highlighting the lighter brown strips on the top of her head. The long bangs over her forehead swept to the left, unkempt and tangled. I looked down, blushing, and sat next to her.

Her hand immediately found my left one which made me jump, but I didn’t pull it away. “What’s your last name, Laura?” She asked after a beat. I turned a little, facing her.

“Hollis.”

She hummed. “Sorry I dragged you into this mess.” She didn’t seem very sorry, but seemed even less like someone who gave apologies often. Her eyes were fixedly looking down at my hand; she looked tired.

“What kind of mess did you drag me into, anyway?” I asked.

“Oh you know, danger, romance, homework; the usual.” A smirk was back on her lips as her eyes met mine. I opened my mouth to reply when I felt a painful tug on my hand. I snatched it back against my chest with Carmilla regarding me wearily, and realized she had pulled my IV out. She took me by the wrist and pulled my arm back out gently, her hand in mine, as she stood and pulled me up with her.

“So, Laura Hollis, let’s go get you some food.”

I nodded before I could mutter thanks, following her out the door.

*** 

Carmilla took me through a maze of hallways, taking lefts and rights seemingly at random. The white of the halls and tile soon turned into wood and carpet, and I ran my fingers along the edge of the paneling that separated the wood paneling from the weird designs of wallpaper that covered the upper half of the wall. The halls were pretty empty, though we did pass a few people on the way, but they almost seemed to walk faster once noticing Carmilla and didn’t even glance in my direction.

“Didn’t uh, LaFontaine tell us to stay back there?” I asked after a few minutes.

Carmilla let out a snort. “If you want to hang back and wait for the ginger twins, be my guest. And here I thought you were about to faint from malnutrition.” She waited for me again, the fourth time she’d had to slow up, before starting to stroll ahead again and I was trying to figure out how she was so much faster than me. We were almost the same height, after all. Maybe my exhaustion was catching up to me.

“Hurry up, we’re almost there slowpoke.”

Eventually I found myself in front of a set of double doors that opened into the largest, most beautiful cafeteria I’d ever seen. There must have been at least 50 dark wooden tables, all with matching wood chairs, ornately carved with different designs on the sides of each one. A large opening in the wall near the back of the room looked into a kitchen, filled with stainless steel appliances of all sorts and as we got closer, I could see tons of wooden cabinets as well. We weaved through the tables as my stomach was doing a happy dance. I was perking up, both from the idea of food and the fact that my hand felt loads better without a needle lodged in it.

We went through a side entrance into the kitchen, Carmilla pausing to make sure it was empty before taking me all the way to the back. She set her jacket down and went to some very tall cupboards in front of us, opening them and then going to a large metal door that opened into a huge refrigerator. I stopped watching her as I gaped at the cupboards though, as they were filled to the brim with anything I could think of that didn’t need refrigeration. There was cereal and bread and instant oatmeal, all sorts of jams and spreads, peanut butter and noodles, and so many different kinds of snacks I could probably live here forever. Many of them had words written in languages I couldn’t read, but there were plenty of American snacks in the array.

I immediately grabbed a pack of Chips Ahoy!, ripping the pack open and shoving two in at once. I didn’t even try to contain the moan of appreciation as I crammed another one in my mouth before even finishing swallowing. A glass of milk was set in front of me and I smiled with my cheeks full of cookies at Carmilla, sitting on the counter next to me. I gulped down the milk before turning to her.

“Thanks. For the food I mean.” I ate another cookie slowly as I hopped up next to her. She had been chewing on a weird-looking granola or protein bar; I couldn’t tell. I faced her, cookie pack in my lap. “So this is a school?”

She glanced at me. “Yes cutie, a school. Silas University, home to all the weirdos and freaks of the 21st century.”

“And you go here?” She didn’t answer that, so I continued, “I had assumed you were a student at NIU, but I’d never seen you around before so I wasn’t sure… So did you transfer then?” I wiped some crumbs off my pants as I took another drink of milk. She tossed the rest of her unfinished bar in the garbage across the room suddenly with a snap.

“Look cutie, you shouldn’t thank me. You _won’t_ thank me. Once you figure out you can’t go home.”

I stopped eating the cookie in my hand, her tone and subject change causing a chill to run up my spine. “What do you mean I can’t go home?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Carmilla. What do you mean I can’t go home…”

Her eyes shifted around and she stepped down to the floor, running her fingers through her hair and causing it to look even more disheveled. She looked more frustrated than anything else, and I waited for her to start speaking.

“Look cupcake, I didn’t know what you were when I brought you here. I felt bad because of the shoulder thing and I’d just wanted to make sure you were alright. I didn’t know you’d actually be one of us. I mean, if science ginger back there hadn’t taken your blood we wouldn’t—“

“Woah woah, slow down. _What_ are you talking about? My blood? What? My shoulder is fine. I mean it hurts but it’ll heal, I don’t understand what the problem is. I’ll just call my dad and—“

“You _can’t call your dad._ Don’t you get it? You’re in fucking Austria. You can’t hide anymore. Once you’re here, you’re here. If my mother ever found out you came here then _left_ just because you wanted to? She’d send half her fucking SWAT team to get you, and it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. Trust me…”

“Austria? How did I get to Austria? Isn’t that in Europe?” I was starting to get upset at her vague explanations as my mind tried to wrap itself around the insane information she was spouting. She wasn’t making any sense and she was also ruining my stomach’s emotional bonding with these cookies. I could feel an oncoming headache at the front of my skull, my anger subsiding from the normalcy of it.

She picked something out of her eye, picking at her nails after that for a moment as if she was purposely ignoring me.

“Carmilla, please tell me what’s going on. _Please._ ” I pleaded. This was ridiculous. Now I’m just supposed to believe her that I’m in Europe? I was in Illinois not a few hours ago. I’d still have yet to come across any sort of telephone and I was almost regretting coming with Carmilla for food. Almost. I clutched the almost-empty cookie packet in my hand as I went to stand closer to her. She eyed me warily before shaking her head with a very unhappy laugh.

“You better not be fucking with me about your naivety, cupcake.” I gave her an eyebrow raise worthy of her own and she turned, motioning for me to follow. “Come on.”

*** 

I followed her out of the kitchen and down more hallways, passing through a few large and mostly empty rooms before some windows told me it was still daylight out. We passed through some glass doors and walked down a stone corridor with openings for windows all over the place. Trees, mostly pines, dotted my view from the window slots on my left.

“Did I finally get my Hogwarts letter 8 years late?” I said, trying to calm my nerves.

“Nerd.” Carmilla kept her eyes straight ahead, though I swore I saw her lips twitch.

As we headed near the end I could hear lots of voices, talking and yelling and shouting. Carmilla reached the edge first and leaned her elbows on the ledge of one of the openings, her hair falling over her face again as I neared.

Whatever I was expecting to see through the stone openings was nothing compared to what my eyes fell upon.

Down a few stories from where we stood were about a hundred kids of all different ages covering part of a field that surfaced at least a few miles across. To either side of me the stone walkways we were on stretched just as far, but I was at least able to make out where the corners were. A large track field sat in the middle, with a football field far to the left and a rather small tennis court behind that. A never-ending expanse of trees ran along the edge in the back from left to right as far as I could see. There were boys racing around the track, one sorely lapping the others over and over in a blur or colors. A group of kids stood closer to me and I squinted trying to make out the details of what they were doing, but widened my eyes as I saw body parts being replaced with other things like claws and muzzles. A tall girl with short hair flickered and reformed as a very large bear, her light brown fur glinting in the setting sun. A few items of clothing blew away as another girl with blonde hair and a thin tail ran off to catch a shirt in the wind for her supposed friend.

I was speechless. I blinked and leaned even farther out the stone opening, my eyes as wide as I could make them. All sorts of sports were being played, from football to soccer, tennis and cheerleading, even hockey. Some tiny-ass kid was building an oval-shaped hockey rink with his hands, walking back and forth as ice appeared below his feet continuously. A few boys different sizes and colors were standing to the side with hockey sticks, waiting for the makeshift rink. One of them literally had blue skin.

To the very edge of the right side of the field were five people with different kinds of wings coming out of their back, taking turns flapping and flying and doing twists, turns and tricks in the air. The smallest boy stood at the ground below, his own brown wings looking to be half attached to his arms as he feebly tried lifting off the ground, hovering a few seconds and landing on his hands and knees with a smile.

I noticed Carmilla beside me, a foot of stone between us, and took a moment to stare at her instead of the field. Her hair curled in just the right way that looked both natural and painfully perfect. Her chin rested on her arms, bangs blowing gently in the small breeze that was present. Her eyes were half closed, bags underneath them and she looked…tired. She might have been the cause of all this craziness in the past day for me, but there was no doubt I regretted flirting with her; she was beautiful. And she looked at the kids on the field like it was magnificently normal.

She blinked her eyes towards mine, smiling with a glint in them as she caught me staring. “What do you think, cupcake?”

I shot her the biggest smile I’d made all day, turning back to the field. “This is amazing, Carm.”

She muttered something back but I didn't hear as I turned back to the field to take it all in all over again. It was amazing _. This_ , whatever this all was, was amazing. I was literally in an X-Men movie or something.

A split second later and I confirmed to myself that this was definitely a movie as a ball of fire nearly incinerated my eyebrows off, exploding off one of the stones next to my face in a small puff of dust.

Carmilla looked at me, standing up as I had sort of ducked down after the fact and peeked back over. A very tall red-headed girl with a ponytail was looking directly at me. One of her hands was still pointed towards me, smoke coming off of it in waves. The shocked expression on her face at least told me it was an accident and she shouted an apology that I saw but couldn’t hear as I stood back up and waved awkwardly with my left hand.

Carmilla pressed her hand on my bicep, attracting my attention. “We should head back. Science nerd is going to pop at least two scientific brain cells as it is for ditching.” I just nodded and followed her, the action becoming the norm in my current situation. I stared at the field below for as long as I could, walking backwards until I could no longer see anything besides the tops of the trees and then paid attention to where Carmilla was going, hopping a few steps forward to catch up.

My mind was whirling with what Carmilla had shown me, every situation I thought I’d be in not even comparing to the craziness it now was. Carmilla ended up dragging me by the hand after stopping twice to wait for me to catch up, winding through the maze of the school for a few minutes until I saw LaFontaine again, looking pretty peeved leaning against the side of the wall. A taller, curly-haired ginger stood next to them with her arms crossed, glowering at Carmilla as we got closer.

Ginger Number Two let out a huff, her curls bobbing around. “There you two are! We’ve been waiting for almost an hour! What on earth were you thinking, wandering around the university with a new student, Carmilla? She’s not even gotten a proper tour or been introduced to this new society or been put into the student database—“ She paused, swiping the hair out of her face. “You need to follow the rules at some point, Carmilla. With your mother being on everyone’s case and—“

By this time, Carmilla and I had reached them both as the taller ginger continued to babble on. Carmilla rudely pushed me away from her and towards LaFontaine, interrupting the rambling.

“Are we done here?” Carmilla spat out angrily as I attempted not to trip, LaFontaine steadying me. Jeez, and here I thought we’d been getting along just fine.

She didn’t wait for an answer from anyone and spun around on her black boots, gliding down the hall and disappearing without a sound. I tucked a strand of stray hair behind my ear and looked up to the two gingers apologetically.

“Laura?” The curly-haired girl said to me, smiling too brightly. “My name is Lola Perry, and I am the Head Counselor as well as the Dorm Officiate here at Silas University! Susan here has told me you’re to be our newest student, yes?” I didn’t respond but it didn’t matter to her. There was a hushed mutter of ‘LaFon _taine_ ” from LaFontaine. “If you’ll follow me, I’m going to _correctly_ introduce you to our school, as well as get your living situation squared away. Classes can be taken care of in a day or two. Right sweetie?” She looked to LaFontaine at this to which they nodded, their nose stuck in some papers again.

“Uh Ms. Perry?” A dull pressure was forming in my head again as I wrapped my hand around the bottle of medicine in my pocket, remembering it. I just wanted to go home. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but what makes you think I want to attend this school? I’m already enrolled in a school back home, a very expensive school. With an expensive dorm my dad pays for. I can’t just quit my classes with only a few weeks left.”

I couldn’t tell if the looks I was given were pitying or condescending, but they bugged me either way. I went to cross my arms then thought better of it. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to stay here. Because, wow, I mean, _wow_. I’m pretty sure this is still just a dream and I’m going to wake up with no Hogwarts letter or pet owl. But don’t I get a say in all this? I mean you can’t just kidnap me, bring me supposedly,” I made air quotes, even if only one hand was actually in the air, “halfway across the world to Austria?  And expect me to stay here, right? Do you even know the definition of kidnapping?”

“Laura, no, you have it all wrong,” LaFontaine said, interrupting me, “We didn’t kidnap you.” They pointed to my shoulder with their pen. “You’re welcome?”

I scoffed, realizing I was getting nowhere with niceties. “Yeah, okay. I’d like to go home now, thanks. Where are my things?” I didn’t even try to hide my irritation.

I heard Ms. Perry clear her throat, “I know you’re worried, Laura, but please trust us. We really are here to help you. Did you take the medicine LaFontaine gave you?” I shook my head and oddly enough, she handed me an unopened bottle of water. It gave me a weird sense of déjà vu as I opened the pill bottle and after triple-checking the bottle still said ibuprofen, swallowed two of the tiny red tablets.

Lola Perry was a little neurotic, but kind. As much as I wanted to be kind back to them both, what I really wanted was to just get out of this place. And it was starting to scare me how I kept being told I couldn’t go home. Like what the hell. My shoulder really was starting to sting now, and my usual headache was coming back so I hoped this medicine I took was magical.

Ms. Perry wrapped one arm around my shoulders in a…comforting, but odd sort of way, like you’re-a-stranger-but-thanks-for-the-motherly-hug kind of way. “Let’s go to my office,” She said after clearing her throat. “LaFontaine?”

LaFontaine pulled a circular device from their pocket at the mention of their name, turning a dial on it and pressing the middle button as we all faced the wall. As they did this, a large section of the wall blurred and vanished, a different hall with a closed glass door in front of us instead.

They walked through the blurry wall portal first and I wondered why we weren’t just apparating everywhere instead. Despite my circumstances, I smiled to myself as I followed them through. It felt a little like walking through a misty waterfall, but there was no water on me once we passed through, and when I turned to look behind me I saw only another wall again.

“Thanks sweetie. Come on, Laura. I’ll explain everything you want to know.”

Fucking finally.

*** 

So in the hour I’d been in Perry’s office, she’d told me to just call her Perry. ‘I’m not a soccer mom!’ she’d said with a huff, to which LaFontaine had given a crass ‘yet’ to. She’d also basically told me that I was stuck in Southeast Austria at this joke of a school, Silas University, a school for quote, ‘kids of all ages with any sort of supernatural powers and uniquely inhuman abilities’, end quote, until I could control these supposed ‘powers’ I had in my body.

To which I’d replied by telling her she was insane, and had threatened to call the Southeast Austrian cops, even if I wasn’t sure the number to the police in Europe off the top of my head. LaFontaine had roared with laughter after that, and I decided to pout as angrily as I could, giving up entirely on talking my way out of this.

Perry sighed, “Laura, I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do. Even if I could let you go back home to your old school, I well, can’t. Awful things would happen to us all, including you, and I just really don’t want that.”

“What kind of ‘awful things’? I don’t get to learn how to breathe fire or grow wings?” I snapped. LaFontaine snorted and tried very badly to cover it up as a cough at Perry’s glare.

“Now I understand that your dad is probably very worried about you sweetie, and I will allow you to make one, _one_ phone call to him and tell him where you are. But I warn you, if he doesn’t respond well, the phones are all tapped and someone will be sent to him to erase his memories of the phone call.”

I nodded eagerly, not caring what she was saying about phone rules. This was ridiculous. Perry handed me a phone attached to a curly cord on her desk and pressed a few buttons before handing it to me, the dial tone ringing in my ear. I stared at the numbers, suddenly nervous and unsure of what I was going to even tell my dad. Not that I wasn’t going to tell him the truth, but I didn’t know if that was the best decision. Was this even the truth? I wasn't sure anymore.

“Do you know the number?” Perry asked me, and I started dialing before I let my thoughts defer me any longer. He answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” It felt like the breath I let out I’d been holding since I’d woken up on the cold metal hospital bed this afternoon.

“Dad.”

“Laura?! Laura honey, is that you?”

I nodded and swallowed, suddenly emotional, “Hey, yeah dad. It’s me.”

“Jesus kid, I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t answer or return any of my calls, Betty had no idea where you were and when I tracked your phone, it was disconnected. Why are you calling internationally?”

I closed my eyes, “I’m in Austria, dad.”

There was a pause and the phone must have rubbed against his cheek or something judging from the scratching sound. “Austria? What are you…”

I could feel my eyes filling with tears and I squeezed them harder. I didn’t care how it sounded anymore, I just needed to be home. He could convince them, maybe call the cops for me or something. I gave up on being composed, “Dad, they won’t let me leave. I’m at this school, and I’m not 100% sure how I got here, but they’re talking about powers and blood tests and there’s kids here who can fly and shoot fire from their hands and I just want to come home and...and—“

“Laura, calm down baby. It’s okay. Now, tell me why you have to stay there again.” I hunched over and turned away from the desk, trying to keep my conversation private even if I was only an arm’s reach away from both of the gingers. My dad sounded so calm, but I pressed onward before I could think about it.

I took a deep breath. “They’re saying I have p—powers of some sort and I tried telling them they’re crazy but they won’t _listen_ and…”

My dad was silent for so long, I thought he'd hung up. “Dad?”

He took a deep breath, “Laura, I want you to listen to me carefully."

"Okay?"

"You need to stay where you are.”

“…What? But Dad—“

“Laura, listen,” there was a frustrated sigh on the other end, “I knew this was going to happen, but I just hoped it wouldn’t be like this. That school you’re at is there to help you. We-I had hoped to keep you away from it all, but it seems we have no choice in the end.”

I was pretty sure I’d stopped breathing now, and I made a squeak of acknowledgement.

“I’ll take care of things here, okay? You’ll be safe there. I promise.”

I grabbed the edge of the desk beside me. “Safe? Dad, they kidnapped me! I don’t want to be here! They can’t just keep me here against my will, I’m an adult now. I’ll call the cops and—“

“ _Laura Hollis._ You’re going to listen to me. You’ll stay at Silas until they or I tell you so. I’ll see you soon, alright?” There was a smile in his words, and it forced a tear from my eye that I wiped away hastily.

“Dad.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Laur. I have to get back to work now.”

“Please don’t make me stay here.” I cried desperately. I didn’t want to stay here alone. I was afraid.

“I’m glad you called though. I love you, Laur-bear. I’ll give Nala a kiss for you.”

“Daddy…” He said nothing back to me, and I swallowed the lump in my throat to respond. This couldn’t be how the conversation was going. I was surely going home...

“I love you too, Dad.” And then he hung up.

I wondered if I was ever going to wake up from this nightmare.

*** 

Whatever else Perry and LaFontaine were saying to me were a blur as I was listening to none of it. I was pretty sure they figured I had mentally checked out as they mostly ended up talking to each other after twenty minutes of apologies and explanations, most of it being hushed whispers referring to me. A plastic box was handed to me, filled with soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush, among other necessities. I think I thanked Perry, but I couldn’t recall.

A pair of pajamas ‘about my size’ were handed to me after Perry and LaFontaine had me follow them from Perry’s office to another room filled with seats, pamphlets and some plastic cabinets. Perry asked me where I’d like to stay for the night but after I didn’t answer, she just tapped a few buttons on her computer, leaning over her desk for a moment before turning back to LaFontaine. They pulled out the circular portal-creating device from their pocket and pressed some buttons after Perry told them where to go.

A darker hallway with a stained glass window appeared in the wavy image and I followed through, pressing my pajamas and toiletries box to my chest. Perry was handing me a key, pointing to a large wooden door in front of us and I moved between her and LaFontaine to unlock it.

“Now Laura, if you need anything just—“ I didn’t wait for them to finish as I shut the door quietly behind me, locking it with a quiet click. Their voices behind the door carried on for a minute before fading away, and with a heavy heart I turned around to survey where I was now.

It was a large dorm of sorts, or small apartment, with an open living area that had a glass balcony door attached to it. I came across a door to my right and walked towards it, opening it to find an actual bed inside. It was already made, a small silver lining as I tossed my toiletries and flannel pajamas on it softly. A bathroom stood to the right of the bed, its own door ajar and I walked in, turning on the light. The brightness glared in my eyes and painted my skin in a ghostly white as I saw my reflection in the rectangular mirror.

I blinked. The image staring back at me was me, only not. She looked different. _I_ looked different. Older maybe, or empty.

I felt empty.

My father didn’t want me to come home. He wanted me to stay here, at Silas. There was no explanation, no real reason to why, either. I was to stay in Austria. I wouldn’t finish my semester at NIU and who knows when I’d see Betty next. Fucking Betty.

I let out a bitter laugh as I cursed my misfortune and went back to the bedroom for the toothbrush and toothpaste Perry had given me. After brushing my teeth and using the toilet I flitted back to the bed, turning the light off behind me. The sun was now setting on the horizon through the bedroom window, oranges and reds coloring the cloudy sky.

I pulled the sling off around my arm and ignoring the pain, stripped myself of the rest of my clothing and curled into the smallest ball my body could make on the soft silky bed sheets. The sheets and blanket surrounded me and I pulled them over my head like a cocoon, closing my tear-filled eyes shut for a long time.


	4. The Opposite of Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla likes to nap and not be productive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hated writing this chapter for some reason. I couldn't put it exactly how I wanted, then realized it would have been over 20 pages long if I'd written it all. Sooo, I had to split it up. Anyway, let me know what you think. :) Yay Catmilla! Also, sorry I'm slow. I literally have no update dates. Just whenever I have the time to write, I do. Also, I got a new job! Yay me! Enjoy, creampuffs :)
> 
> Carm's POV :D

All I could really think about was how angry I was at Lola Fucking Perry and how she needed to keep her pointy nose out of my life as I sprinted from the health wing. I was trying and failing not to think about my mother Perry had so elegantly brought up, effectively ruining my good mood I'd had only a few moments ago. She had no business knowing anything about me, let alone my relationship with my mother. And to bring it up in Laura’s presence had irked me greatly.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, spending half of my evening with Laura hadn’t been so bad. She was a weird girl, kind of obnoxious and definitely irrational, but she mostly just seemed confused. She’d let me take her hand and drag her around half the Health Center after knowing me all of 12 hours. Then when I showed her what we were, what _she_ was…it had almost been like she trusted me. I knew that wasn’t true, but it was a nice thought. Also, Laura's hand in mine had been a really nice feeling.

It scared the shit out of me as well.

I ended up half-running back to my apartment on the other side of campus, not even noticing how fast I’d been going until I was walking up the staircase to my door. I unlocked it after a long breath, tossing my keys on the kitchen counter and kicking the door shut. It was really just a very large dorm, since it was a university after all, but it was pretty spacious for one person. It had a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom, all pretty large and expensively furnished thanks to Mother’s credit card and rich connections.

I pulled some leftover noodles from the fridge, heating them up while I popped open a can of soda and rubbed my face. I hadn’t even realized I’d barely eaten anything all day and I was starving; the bar from earlier did nothing for me. Flopping on my dark brown couch, I flicked on the television after grabbing the noodles from the microwave, not wanting or caring to change the channel. I downed the container of reheated noodles in far less time than was proper before laying lifelessly on my side, my head resting on the arm of the couch.

My thoughts drifted to again Laura, thinking of where she'd be staying and if it would be nearby. There'd be nothing stopping us now from getting to know each other now that she was to live here, but I just wasn't sure if that's what she or I wanted. She wasn't like anyone else I'd ever been with or shown interest with and I debated with myself for a few minutes if I wanted to corrupt the poor thing.

After a couple minutes, I could no longer take the stupidity The Lifetime movie on the TV was, so I put on a music channel and draped my arm over my eyes, sighing.

***

I woke up to my phone again, thank god muted this time, vibrating against my butt in my back pocket and answered it in a haze. It was a little after ten at night and it wasn’t a longshot to guess who was calling.

“You awake?”

“Mmm…Elsie…no. What.”

There was a ridiculous clatter as a blonde mess tossed a giant backpack on the floor beside me suddenly. “We’re going out! Get up, bitch.”

“Don’t you ever knock?” I complained as I threw my arm back over my face, ending the now pointless phone call.

“Carmilla, it’s a Tuesday night and you’re practically nocturnal. At least usually… “ She paused to look at my still half-asleep body on the couch. “Plus, we haven’t gone out to the city in like, two weeks. C’mon, I’ll buy first round? I heard Merano might have karaoke tonight…” She said, singing the last word and practically buzzing beside me while shaking my arm across my face.

“That’s on Thursday, liar.” My voice was still groggy from my long nap.

She let out a huff and I looked to see myself alone again. There were drawers being opened and closed in my bedroom and then Elsie was beside me again with a pop, towering over me with a mountain of clothes she tossed on top of my body.

“I’m going to steal all your clothes if you don’t put something hot on and come with.” She’d already begun changing her own clothes, no doubt planning to wear something of mine. Thief.

I snatched a particularly favorite shirt of mine as she was about to put it on. “Wear your own clothes, you klepto!”

“Does that mean you’ll get ready?” Excitement filled Elsie's voice, to which I rolled my eyes. She knew it wasn’t really much of a battle to get me to go out with her.

“And miss happy hour?”

Elsie tossed the hat she had on her head up in the air with a cackle as she started pulling clothes out from her obnoxious backpack on the wooden floor.

***

The first time I went to the city of Graz was with my mother and William. It was pretty close to Silas actually, though that’s not where we lived at the time. We had gone for a meeting mother had, I think, and she’d left me and Will to play in a beautiful park near the Mur River. He’d been real young still, being five years younger than I, and I was to watch him until mother came back.

After playing hide and seek and being unable to find him after an hour, I’d come to find out he’d gone to play by the river and fell in. He could stand in it but couldn’t reach the rocks to climb out and I couldn’t pull him out.

Needless to say, mother was less than pleased when I ran into the building crying and she had to pull a drenched 6-year-old William crying his eyes out. Neither of our powers had come in yet and she’d yelled at us for the rest of the night. Being the older sibling, I had received a harsher punishment than no dessert, but she nonetheless had stopped taking us to any of the cities she visited after that. But I still remember how beautiful a city Graz was. The city lights were a sight to see, especially at night and it was one of the reasons I came here with Elsie so much.

Merano was a corner bar located about a mile from the Mur River and currently offered happy hour every day from 10 to 11 PM. Another good thing about Graz is that it was known as a student city, being the second largest city in Austria with six different universities to attend, which therefore meant there were a lot of places to get drinks as well as blend into the large crowds everywhere.

We sort of flitted to and from a few different bars, appearing in dark corners or the middle of a throng of sweaty dancing bodies. Elsie ended up swiping drinks a lot from unsuspecting customers throughout the night and paying for the rest with a credit card I didn’t even want to know where she got. By a quarter to two we were both sweaty from dancing and drunk off our asses.

She popped us over to a park by the river a few blocks away, passing a very expensive-looking bottle of vodka to me. She’d probably stolen from it behind a bar, though where she found a place that had expensive shit like this was beyond me. I called her an invisible bandit as we passed the bottle back and forth to take shots from and stumbled along the river, making her laugh.

Graz might be a large city, but it was still possible to see the stars at night above us, twinkling between the clouds in the dark sky. After a few minutes of silence I let out a sigh. “Why d’you stay here, Els?”

Her blonde ponytail swung around as her head turned to look at me questioningly. Neither of us were in the right state of mind to have a conversation, but sobriety wasn’t here to tell me to shut up and with the day I'd had, I was just about done with my quota of responsibilities. She took another swig of the vodka, wiping her chin with her arm inelegantly as I took a seat on one of the large rocks beside the river. I stole the bottle back as she clambered up the rock I was sitting on, using my arm as leverage. The moon's reflection waved in the rippled water.

“You could go anywhere,” I continued, taking another long drink, “Live anywhere you wanted. You could live in Paris, or Alaska, or Australia…or…God, anywhere but _here,_ so why do you always come back?”

“Who else would do your nasty dishes for you?” I pushed her off the rock with a shove and she rolled back on the grass with a laugh.

“Besides, your couch _is_ really comfortable.”

I let out a soft laugh. “That it is…”

“Split this and then let’s go back?” Elsie said then, standing up and stealing the vodka back, effectively ending the conversation. She chugged with a grimace, leaving only a quarter left. I shrugged. “Yeah okay.”

***

Waking up in my bed without remembering how I got there was unusual, even for me. The last thing I remembered was the vodka bottle Elsie ended up having in her possession in the later part of the night.

Which was probably accountable for the giant headache I could feel as I opened my eyes before shutting them with a groan. Yay hangovers.

I rolled over to look at the time and saw an empty bottle of Beluga Russian vodka sitting on my nightstand. Yep, definitely a vodka-headache. My alarm clock shined out a blurry 10:17 AM at me.

After taking some ibuprofen with a lot of water I went to my kitchen to grab some breakfast. My living room looked like a clothes bomb had exploded in it and Elsie was passed out on my couch, snoring loudly. I rolled my eyes as I grabbed two granola bars and another glass of water, setting it down with one of the bars on my coffee table for her before heading back to my room. I had absolutely nothing to do today, no notes or calls from my mother, nor Perry or William or anyone else and I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for one. Besides, it was a beautiful day out.

My skin tingled against me at just the thought of shifting and I shoved the granola bar in my mouth as I immediately started undressing, tossing my clothes and undergarments on the floor in a rush.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

***

My nails dug into the soft bark as I clawed my way up a rather tall-looking tree after loping through the woods. Silas University wasn’t just one big building but rather many, having both old and new buildings on the many acres of land it sat upon. One of my favorite things about Silas though wasn’t the buildings, but the giant expanse of woods surrounding it. I hummed out a pleasant sigh as the sun beat down on the black fur along my back through the thin branches above. The sun left little spots of warmth on me through the leaves it peaked around. I stretched my lithe body along a high branch, with my chin on my paws.

Although I was still pretty far from the main building, the one with the Health Center and the cafeteria, I was only a few feet away from the large field I’d taken Laura to yesterday. Today they were having one of their of outside yoga classes, with most of the kids ending up in really odd positions while trying to relax. I think it was supposed to help with the whole ‘control your powers with a clear mind' thing, but it just put me to sleep. Which was exactly what I was going for as I listened to the soft beat of music the teacher played on her portable stereo.

My eyes closed and I drifted to a comfortable sleep.

I awake a few hours later and climbed down the tree I’d claimed for the afternoon, jumping the last 20 feet to the pine needle-littered floor with a soft thud. Unsheathing my thin claws in my front paws, I dug them into the dirt below, enjoying the feeling while I stretched my back. I could smell everything out here; the different animal scents, the tree sap, the pines surrounding me, the flowers and weeds. It was like a breath of fresh air, literally, and I smiled. Shifting into my leopard was my go-to, mainly being they were great climbers and Silas had a shit-ton of trees. But also I was very powerful as this species, being strong yet still fast. Plus my fur color is mostly natural, passing as a panther, whereas a very dark-brown tiger was not as convincing. I blended in well when other animals and people saw me.

I came out to the woods every chance I got, which sadly wasn’t that often. But out here, I didn’t have to think about my dysfunctional family or my abusive, controlling mother, or what a screw-up I was. Or the lives I ruined every day, tearing kids from their parents and all. It wasn't supposed to be like that, but I saw how it affected them. Both the kids and their families. I could be me, just on four limbs with a tail and fur. I felt almost free, if one could call it that. Free of responsibility as well as guilt.

I could also partially attend some of the classes Silas taught, ones mother had no interest of me attending. I never did figure out why exactly she didn’t want me going to classes at a school she herself ran, but part of me wondered if it was because some of them were human classes. Not classes that had humans in them, but ones that were taught in human schools, to normal children. Things that she did not think were important. Besides offering these classes, like Sociology or Baking, or Art, there were of course other classes meant to help the kids control their powers and such, like Supernatural Powers 101 and Yoga for the Non-Human. My mother might be the Dean at Silas but she didn’t have 100% control of what happened here, which was why it had classes of all sorts. It was to help us fit into society better. Or something like that.

After being thrown out of every class I tried to attend by every teacher when Mother had first moved us here, per her strict orders, she’d taken to locking me in her office every day while she went off to do whatever it was she did. She’d only given me the ‘job’ of being a Tracker so as to keep close tabs on me and know what I was up to; same with William, though he was partially there to help keep tabs on me as well when he tagged along. He was the younger sibling, but good at following orders. Me, not so much.

Also, she’d been pissed I’d clawed up her expensive walnut wood door trying to unlock it. Whatever.

Being a Tracker had both its pros and cons, but I’d done mostly well with it. Finding kids with growing powers, bringing them to Silas, watching them learn and grow as they came to terms with what they were as well as how to use their powers in all the right ways. I suppose it was rewarding, in a way that only a job that is forced on you can be. As much and I'll never admit it, I was proud of the kids I'd found. Yes it was me who took them from their homes, but it was nice to see the same kids growing up, happy.

I’d been at Silas for about five years and a Tracker for 4 of those. I’ve had my fair share of runners, kids who didn’t want to leave or some trying to call the cops and such. Those marks weren't so fun. But then there were the ones who were dangerous, both to themselves and those around them, who tried to use their gifts in negative and risky ways. Those were the fun ones, as we had to have as little publicity as possible and I got to chase them. And I was very fast, even on two legs compared to most people.

Being a Non-Human wasn’t exactly unheard of nowadays, but it was still very rare even if some humans were aware and okay with it. In the last few years or so, it had become public knowledge, though it was still pretty hush-hush. Compared to people believing in aliens, it was a just a few notches up.

I chose to continue tracking kids down and bringing them to Silas, only because I feared for their safety. It sucked that a lot of the people who I brought here were well, kids, too. There were very few adults here who were students, as most humans who end up having powers show signs around the start of puberty, though some are present at birth while others remain dormant until the early 20’s, near the end of puberty. And we didn't exactly have a college courses section.

I thought of Laura Hollis and where she might have come from, her family and home. Not being a mark of mine, I had absolutely no information on her besides where she went to school, well before Silas, her hair and eye color, and that she found me slightly attractive. It made me smile as I sauntered through Silas’ woods, ears pricking in different directions from the plethora of noises surrounding me. The sun was starting to set now. Hmm.

Laura Hollis with her normality, and her naivety and curiosity; her human-ness. Whatever it was about her, it intrigued me. Along with how normal and human she was or seemed, she wasn’t. Her powers must be late or still dormant and although rare, it wasn’t impossible depending on what they even were. And I didn't think LaFontaine would lie to me, seeing as they knew I could rip their throat out in seconds if need be.

Maybe Laura could have had months or even a few more years at home before coming here. I remembered the look on her face when I’d seen her holding those surgical scissors in her hand. She might have put up a front, but I could smell the fear on her then. I wondered how she was holding up now after talking to Perry.

Well whatever, it didn’t matter anyway. Laura was stuck here along with everyone else now and she was just going to have to live with it.

***

I scaled the side of the building my apartment resided in, using the uneven bricks to propel myself up past the fourth story to my bedroom window I’d left open. I rolled around on my carpet for a minute, rubbing my back and the top of my head against the thick fibers before crouching and shifting back to my human body. It always felt a little weird for a few seconds, to go from four legs to two. I stood slowly, stretching in a lazy fashion before picking up my clothes from earlier and throwing them partially on. I grabbed a different shirt, albeit no cleaner than the first, and switched at the last minute. It was far more comfortable, being a worn and tattered band t-shirt from my teen years.

I closed the window in my bedroom, locking it and heading towards the living room where I noticed that the mess of clothes from earlier was gone, along with Elsie. A note sat beside one of the books I’d been reading atop my coffee table.

_Thanks for letting me drag you out last night, loser. I’ll be at the SS building for the week._

_P.S. I did your dishes SLOB_

_-Els_

I threw the note in the fireplace I had nestled in the corner, smiling. Brat. My phone caught my attention next to the book and I snatched it up, turning it on after a few seconds. It barely had time to get a connection before it was buzzing in my hand, signaling a phone call.

“Sup.”

“Carmilla! I’ve been trying to call you all god damn day! Don’t you ever answer your phone?”

“Sorry Willy Boy, I was out. What do you need?”

“We have an assignment.”

“And why are you calling me about it?”

“Mother says I must accompany you.” And there it was. The one reason I couldn’t stand William; he was Mother’s pet. I let out a rather loud sigh, which he decidedly didn’t comment on.

“I’ll meet you downstairs in ten.”

And here I thought I'd get a day off.

***

“Where do you go all the time?” Will asked me as we sped down a highway in Berlin.

“Nowhere," I said without taking my eyes off the book I'd brought with.

“Then why are you always ‘busy’?” He air quoted the last word with raised eyebrows. He knew I was never busy, outside of when I was on the case for a mark.

“Maybe I’m running around the world saving poor, innocent girls from certain doom.”

He let out an uproariously loud laugh, smacking the wheel to which I glared and reread the sentence I was on.

“I don’t think I’d call it saving, Kitty.”

“Why are you tagging along with me in the first place? Don’t you have classes to attend or some shit.” William was allowed to attend classes, as he was younger and therefore ‘needed the experience’ or something. What bullshit. There was a moment of silence as he thought of what to say.

“It was either me or Ell.” He finally said with a shrug.

“Just shut up and watch the road."

***

Our mark today was a young girl in Berlin, Germany. A one Emma Winkler, a nerdy little 14-year-old with supposed air current and wind powers.

AKA she was the next Avatar.

At least I didn't have to spend half a week stalking her like I usually did. William had apparently already been observing her on and off the past week, so all we had to do was bring her in today. Usually I was the one to talk to all of the marks we spoke to, as I typically worked alone, but seeing as I had a babysitter I figure I might as well put him to good use.

We found the girl walking on an uneven sidewalk a few blocks from her house and William introduced us both to the girl rather quickly, trying to explain without really explaining at all who we were and why we had to speak with her. It was a rather amusing and poor attempt at subtlety and eventually Will just gave up, telling her he knew about her wind magic tricks as he called them.

After the poor thing hyperventilated for about five minutes, sending unintentional gusts of wind blowing my hair everywhere, we calmed her down enough to follow us to a nearby coffee shop called Double Eye. And by ‘we’, I mean William.

I wasn’t always so uninterested in the marks; Emma was a sweet girl and this was my job after all, even though I didn't get paid. But I’d almost doubled the amount of students that now attend Silas in the four years I’d been doing this and I just was so…tired. Tired of doing whatever was told of me without explanation. Of being forced to sit on the sidelines as everyone else became stronger and smarter. Tired of being so lonely. And tired of being the bad guy to the kids.

It was always the same promises that they'd eventually get to go home back to their family, their friends and their lives. But no one ever went home. Silas was more like a prison, just without the metal bars and jumpsuits.

I zoned back into what William and Emma were talking about as a really short waitress brought out our coffee drinks, a cup of cream on the side for me. I nodded my thanks, poking the little leaf design on the top of the coffee before taking a small sip.

“So as I was saying, Silas is an awesome school where people like us,” Will made a circle with his finger, “can be safe. You’ll learn more about your powers and how to control them, use them for good and be an all-around superhero!”

“The next Avatar.” I conceded, drinking my extra cup of cream in one go and licking my lips.

Emma giggled, sipping her frappuccino. Her eyes twinkled green over the large cup she held, her shoulder-length brown hair making her look younger than she was. It made me sad to think of her having to leave the parents and home she probably had. She was harmless, really. We could have waited a few more years to bring her back. I looked away.

Will began unzipping a backpack he’d brought with him that was hanging on the back of his chair. “So I’m going to give you a bunch of information about everything we’ve talked about and you’ll have to show your parents, alright?” Emma nodded to this, scooting her drink to the side. Will placed 2 folded pamphlets on top of a thick maroon folder full of information about Silas University, sliding it in front of Emma and folded his hands on the table. She looked at it all nervously, flipping through the pamphlets for a few minutes before looking at the front of the folder. Her tiny green eyes squinted at the front of it.

“Um…Will, was it? This says Silas is in Austria. I thought it was in Germany?” I let out a heavy sigh as I turned to look at the girl, my chin resting on the palm of my hand.

“Silas University is located in Syria, Austria. It is there for all supernatural non-humans, or ‘mutants’, if you will. You will need to leave your home in a few days’ time or you will be forcibly removed to be registered as a student at Silas. The school was built and created to protect you and keep you safe. You’ll be given a brand new place to call home. There will be food supplied for you, along with all other required needs. You will be unable to leave Silas University while attending. Attendance is mandatory. There will be a visitation day twice a year if your family so wishes to take advantage of that,” I recited boringly, the rules I'd now memorized spewing from my lips in a blunt, mocking tone. The small girl looked like she was about to cry when I finished.

“Could you at least try to have a heart, sis,” Will muttered to me as he took Emma’s hand to try to calm her.

“Nope. Why prolong the inevitable truth?” His eyes yellowed at me, annoyance in them and I let out a small growl.

Emma sniffled and I turned away from Will. “Do I have to come? To Silas, I mean. Do I have to go? I mean I can try not to use my powers anymore, and then I can stay at my school and with my parents and—“ She stopped talking as I shook my head no, wiping a tear from her eyes.

“Sorry kid.” A small breeze was now blowing around our feet. “Look on the bright side; better than being someone’s pet lab rat.” The squeak she let out made Will smack me in the arm. “What? She’s got a few days at least—“

“You are absolutely no help! Why mom made me come here at all is beyond me.”

“Right there with you, Momma’s Boy.” I stood with a scrape of my chair, finishing my coffee. “See ya soon, kid,” I said to Emma with a salute and strolled back to the car.

***

“Well that was a disaster,” Will commented, opening the SUV door with a groan. He shoved my feet off the seat as he sat down, turning down the volume of the radio. My chuckling only annoyed him more. Good.

“You know, you’re the worst tracker in the history of…well, trackers! And why am I always driving?” The engine roared to life as we made our way back through the busy streets of Berlin to an alley before activating the portal back to school. Guess he didn't care too much about accidental publicity. “I had to miss my entire day of classes for this, Carmilla! You know how hard I work in school?” No, no I don’t. I picked my book back up, continuing where I left off.

“Your coffee was fucking expensive too,” He mumbled. A smile forced it's way on my face. I figured he'd be stuck paying for everything. He had sole access to all mother’s money anyway.

“Let’s just get back. I have some sleep to catch up on.”

“You’re a twat, you know that?” I shook my head and laughed, sliding my sunglasses on.


	5. Recording for Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla hates paperwork and Danny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I updated in a reasonable time! Yay! So this is a continuation of chapter 4 and I'm super excited to share with anyone who reads this. I have so many ideaaaaaaas. >:D Let me know what you think! Enjoy.  
> P.S. I love GoodWill, no judgements :)  
> P.S.S. I give up on the 'there's swearing' warning. If you think there's anything I should be letting people know, tell me! Please!
> 
> Still Carm's POV :)

It’s Monday before I get an assignment again.

One of the Directors had called to leave a message informing me that ‘a one Emma Winkler from Berlin, Germany’ was ready to be retrieved, with a peppy English accent. It had been pretty quiet the past few days, my activities mostly involving napping, reading and avoiding everyone.

I was slowly going crazy though, which was the only reason I found myself back on the road to Berlin, sadly with Will, at the ass-crack of dawn. I hadn’t heard anything about Emma since our first meeting with her. I wasn’t sure what else Will had told her regarding powers and non-humans and Silas, but knowing him it would be exactly what Mother wanted him to say.

So naturally I brought him again today to do it all over again as I rested my forehead against the car window, trying to get a few more minutes of shuteye.

It took a good half hour to find Emma’s house, even with our outdated GPS, her house being one of many identical townhouses piled against each other down a tiny German street. It was a little past 9 in the morning and I still wondered why we had to be here so early; the kid had all fucking day to run around Silas on a golden tour with Perry. But I still got out of the car, reaching my arms up over my head in a slow stretch.

“Let’s get this over with.” Will nodded and we walked to the front door, ringing the doorbell. I was glad I’d worn a tank top as the morning sun beat down on my shoulders with an unimaginable heat. I wiped my bangs off my forehead to cool off for a second before the front door opened with a screech. A small boy no older than five poked his tiny head around the door, with blonde hair sticking out everywhere atop his head. He eyed my sunglasses over my face with wide eyes and then turned away, running off with the door half open.

“Momma! Momma! Some people are at the door!” I heard the young boy holler from a distance as Emma came running down the stairs, slightly breathless.

“Sorry!” She looked at me a moment before turning to Will. “I’m all packed, I just have to bring my bags down the stairs... My parents are in the kitchen if you’d like to come in?” Emma moved away from the door to let us pass, her shy smile failing to hide her nerves. Whatever clothes she was wearing made absolutely no sense at all to me, with different neon colors popping out on every inch of her shirt and shoes. Kids these days are fucking weird and have absolutely no fashion sense.

Will and I walked in as Emma’s mom and dad came to greet us and Will took the lead after shaking both their hands, all professionalism. Emma introduced us both and Will started talking animatedly to them both as I followed behind lazily, closing the front door.

The house was quaint, an older model of the normal townhouses around Germany, and fit Emma’s picturesque family perfectly. King, tiny mother, receding-hairline father, annoying younger brother, smart older daughter who kept the family together, probably. Pictures littered the house in every nook and cranny. On the walls, across the TV stand, overtop all the bookshelves and tables; it was enough to make me vomit. I let out a gagging noise to which Will shot me  a look with invisible eye lasers. I barely tried to cover it with a cough, looking upstairs.

“I’ll just uh…yeah.” Emma’s parents gave me looks of confusion as I headed up the stairs to get Emma’s things. Will could handle the parents them.

The first room I saw after getting to the top of the stairs I went into. It was all pink and white, which honestly wasn’t much better than the downstairs Betty Crocker bullshit, but I immediately knew it was Emma’s room. Bright colors aside, it looked like someone had robbed her of everything but the hideous wallpaper, as it was completely devoid of any sort of decorations or clothes. She had at least 5 over-stuffed boxes sitting on her bed along with a pink suitcase beside them with EMMA embroidered on the top in bright colors. It looked like she had stuffed her entire room in them and I wondered where the hell she thought she would be putting all this stuff. Good thing Will had driven the SUV again; otherwise we’d have been leaving half these boxes here.

I hefted the first large box against me, my muscles straining as I made my way down the stairs.

***

Thirty minutes later and I was wiping my face and neck with the front of my shirt after pulling my hair into a messy bun. Emma’s mother had graciously given me a glass of lemonade after warming up to me enough to thank me for bringing her things to the car. She was probably wondering how I carried the boxes that had been as tall as myself and twice the size, but fortunately did not comment.

Will was almost done with his repartee to the parents and I was itching to get back and out of this house. My biceps were throbbing and the pictures on their walls were starting to creep me out. I leaned against the doorframe of the living room, drinking the lemonade in small sips as William finished his spiel.

“So the first visitation day is actually pretty soon, in the fall. August 23rd I believe. Right Kitty?” I nodded, completely clueless of when visitation days ever were. “And next year there is another that takes place in the spring. You’ll receive a specialized notice from the University in the mail or a phone call about them soon after Emma is registered and starts classes. She’ll be able to let you know when we get there but after that she’s on her own. But don’t worry, if there’s an emergency or something crazy happens, you’ll be contacted right away.” Will looked at his phone before shoving it in his back pocket.

“Well, we better get going Emma. Mr. and Mrs. Winkler, it’s been a real pleasure. And don’t forget, everything I or Emma have talked to you about needs to stay quiet. I don’t want the university to have to wipe your memories.” He said with a wink and a grin. Good going Will, great job at being creepy.

Emma let out a sob and flung herself at her mom, her dad already wiping tears from his eyes as he put his arms around both Emma and his wife. Emma’s mom was hugging her tightly, brushing through her hair lovingly as she pressed kisses to her forehead and whispered to her. I ignored the ache in my chest as I watched the interaction take place and the young girl say her goodbyes to her parents and then her little brother, tears in all of their eyes.

I hated it. The part where the loving parents cried and comforted the child they’d raised. Where the kid cried their eyes out while saying their goodbyes to the parents that love them and they love back. To watch a family willingly let their adolescent daughter or son go to an unknown school with people they didn’t know, where they couldn’t be in contact with her or know how they are. Their only hope in helping them control the powers they possessed was a secretive school they’d never even heard of and weren’t allowed to talk about…it was insane.

It made the uncomfortable ache in my chest hurt more and more.

Mother wouldn’t even bat an eye if I suddenly keeled over and died tomorrow, and this family was crying their eyes out because their daughter was going to a school eight hours away. Even if they couldn’t visit whenever they wanted, it wasn’t as far as other families. I couldn’t understand it and I decided I didn’t want to try. I walked to the car to wait, hoping the ache in my chest would leave.

***

Emma had been sniffling quietly for about ten minutes straight and I’d had enough.

“Kid, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to put you in a sealed tank so you can drown yourself.”

She responded to my threat by letting out louder sobs and I gave up. I threw my hands up, one holding my barely-read book, opened the glove compartment in front of me with a growl and tossed her a travel-size bag of tissues. She blew her nose and quieted down after a few more sniffs.

“Thank you.” She said quietly. I grumbled back an unintelligible ‘you’re welcome’ while opening my book again and turned to the page I was on.

I got a whole chapter in before the peace was interrupted by Emma suddenly gaining her confidence in the form of an infinite array of questions asked to Will and I, starting with her interest about the portal and six questions on how it worked. It was a little annoying, but some of the questions made me laugh. Like ‘so when do I get my own portal-traveling car?’ and ‘is there a gift shop near the school? I want to get my Ma a sweatshirt’.

Will’s favorite had been when she asked him if we ever traveled to the moon with the portal. I turned the volume up on the radio after that and slid my sunglasses back on as Emma began to sing and dance to the song playing. Will laughed and joined along and I pretended not to know the words, even though I did. I never said there weren't pros to my job.

***

When Thursday finally rolled, I woke up tangled in a pile of blankets on my bed with the sun blinding me. My muscles were screaming at me to go back to sleep and I wished I could have obliged but instead rolled onto my side to check my phone for any new messages or e-mails, hoping that there were none.

A text message blinked at me from the application on the front screen and I opened it begrudgingly. It was just a standard message telling me that today was report day and I was to make my rounds on some of my marks around campus, reporting their activities and improvements, crap like that. It was rather boring and I usually just bullshitted what I wrote, but there was one silver lining to the day.

I could attend classes! I didn’t want to be excited about it, because attending classes meant actually almost socializing with the rest of the Silas student body, but it had been weeks since I had been able to listen in on anything besides yoga and sports practice.

So I rolled out of bed and threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt, not even minding it was before ten in the morning, and grabbed my packet of blank reports from my nightstand along with a pen. Hooking my keys to my jeans, I locked my front door and headed across campus.

***

A few kids on my reports list were fairly new students, but there were a few that had been here for months and just needed to be checked up on. I made a mental note to send whoever sent me my e-mail a small thank you, as they’d found the time to not only type all of the names of who I was to report on that day, even though I already knew that, but they also put it in order of where these kids would be according to time as well as what building. It sounded like Perry’s handiwork and I groaned while appreciating the shit out of it, reluctant to ever thank her. The list started with the class farthest away from my dorm but I had to pass the cafeteria to reach it, so I grabbed a piece of fruit on my way over.

I took a seat near the back door, slinking against the wall to draw as little attention as possible to myself as the middle-aged man who taught the class strolled in. Since it was the only English class offered on campus, it was practically crammed full of students every quarter. It made it easy for me to hide in the back, overseeing the students as they all chatted amongst themselves and still be inconspicuous from the teacher. The man cleared his throat, beginning class and I got comfortable.

***

The next few classes went as well as could be expected. The teachers droned on, the students paid little attention and I wrote some comments besides the kids’ names on the packet. Most of the courses taught at Silas were pretty ordinary, same as any other school or university; English, Math, History. I rather enjoyed the philosophy class they’d recently added since the spring but had only been able to listen in once. Not many kids were registered yet and it was mostly the older ones. There were a few clubs at school however. They were sort of just a bunch of stupid meetings where half the time someone would talk over one someone else and then they’d end up arguing, but they were still fun. Not that I ever went as a member, but I eavesdropped sometimes.

There was also, interestingly enough, a fighting club on campus. It focused more on defense than anything else, but it did involve using your powers as a weapon. They weren’t approved by the school though and whenever some of the older teachers or head honchos saw, they’d bust them. I happened to think it was hilarious and tried to get whoever was holding the meetings caught once in awhile, even though I did enjoy listening and watching from afar. It was also a pretty good show whenever someone got injured and they had to take the wounded to LaFontaine, which usually brought a very angry Lola Perry to the club meeting to lecture them all. It happened more often than not and I looked forward to it whenever I got wind of a meeting. I was bummed when I was away to miss them.

I clicked my pen repeatedly as I sat high up on a windowsill of the class I was currently in which was trying and failing to resemble some kind of Harry Potter transfiguration shit. The students below were desperately trying to morph their limbs and other body parts or help each other accomplish the feat. So far only two kids had been even remotely successful, the young boy that I was reporting on being one of them. He had successfully transformed his ears into mouse-like features twice now and was currently massaging a fellow classmate’s face next to him so he could manage a similar feat.

The class itself was called ‘Transmorphing’, but I thought it was a joke. You didn’t need a fucking class to teach you how to morph your body if it was literally a natural occurrence. I rolled my eyes, checking the box marked '5' under improvement next to the young boys name on the report before hopping out the other side of the window to the stone floor outside.

Most of the classes at Silas were held inside the main building on campus which looked like a humongous stone castle without the towers or gargoyle statues. In the middle was a small stone courtyard, commonly known as the quad, complete with a fountain that didn’t work and long, stone benches. There were doors that led from many of the classes straight into the quad after a small overhang with each of the four corners heading off to different departments. It seemed like when they had originally built this place it had been smaller, but it just kept being added on to, though from the outside you would never be able to tell. Most of the hallways made absolutely no sense and constantly ran into one another at odd angles or other halls, and the decorations on each floor were absolutely horrendous. The other dorm buildings were luckily built more recently, having been added onto campus when additional rooming was needed.

I folded my reports up, pocketing them and sticking my pen behind my ear as I walked around the courtyard. I didn’t even care I was going the long way around. I had all day to finish the packet and only a couple marks left to observe, and it was a nice day out.

Although it wasn't rocket science, I really was doing what I was supposed to be doing, I just didn’t exactly write the truth all the time on my report day. No one will care if Mikey Mighty Mouse made a new friend or not in English class, even if it was good to see him finally talking to others. All the directors of the school cared about was if the kids were improving or not. Most of the comments I wrote were something along the lines of ‘talks in class, not failing’ or ‘hasn’t killed anyone or themselves yet’. None of the directors had come to me in regards to my smart comments yet.

As I rounded the second corner to head off to the back of the school, I noticed someone sitting in one of the open holes in the stone decorative fencing between the courtyard and the stone halls.

Laura Hollis, her knees drawn up, a sketchpad across them. Her hair swayed from the light breeze outside but she didn’t bother putting it up as she continued to stare ahead, the staring contest she was having with the fountain definitely a losing battle as it continued to not spout water of any kind. I changed direction and walked over, nudging her with my shoulder after she failed to notice me then leaning on the wall beside us. When Laura whipped her head to look at me with a jump I almost did a double-take.

Her light-brown eyes looked almost gray with how tired and unfocused they looked, with dark shadows hovering underneath them like undersea rainclouds. The beautiful long brown hair she had was looking rather stringy and unclean, some tucked behind her ear with random pieces hanging in front of her face. She looked thinner too, though the baggy clothes she wore certainly didn’t help. In short, she looked like shit.

“You’re jumpy. Rough night pumpkin?”

“Leave me alone Carmilla.” There wasn’t any bite to her words, though I knew she meant to include it. She tucked a particularly greasy-looking piece of hair out of her face and went back to her sketchbook, the hair just falling back where it had been a moment before.

I didn't brush it back for her.

My next mark I was headed to report on had been at Silas for almost a year, but she’d been having a particularly hard time with controlling her powers since day one, and also happened to be one of my least favorite people in the world. She always found her way onto my list and it put me in a bad mood every time. I watched as Laura started to sketch something on the pad of paper in front of her, pausing to give me a sideways glance.

“Did you need something?” She looked so empty. I wasn’t having any of it.

“C’mon sunshine.” I pushed away from the wall, taking her sketchbook and folding it under my arm while holding my other hand out to her. It didn’t surprise me when she stood up and took it, following me down the hall with a sigh.

***

“A stinky old gym…?”

“Oh hush. It’s not what you think.” I strolled through the double doors, holding it open for Laura as she followed me inside Silas’ one and only, outdated gymnasium. At the start of the bleachers I let go of Laura’s hand to head up them, taking the steps two at a time nimbly and sitting at the third row from the top. Laura followed after a minute, clunking up the steps one by one until she was next to me.

Silence encircled us and I tilted my head to the side, resting it on my hand to stare at her. Laura really was quite beautiful, even if she did look pretty rough at the moment. And I couldn’t help but feel it was partially my fault. My gut twitched and I stopped thinking about it, looking instead to the ceiling which was all glass or plastic of some sort, casting the gym in a yellowish tone.

“This place reminds me of the house with all the cats in Harriet the Spy.” Laura said softly after awhile, looking up to the ceiling as well. I smiled to myself, letting my hair fall to hide it.

The double doors on the other end of the gym flung open before I could comment on her observation and movie reference and the students for the next class finally showed up. Wasting no time getting started, targets were set up around the padded walls and the rest of the lights shot on as ten kids spread out among the squeaky floors. I looked for the tallest member in the small crowd and spotted the bright red beanpole with ease. Fire shot from her hand in small little bursts of power, her poorly-aimed attempts at hitting the targets pathetic in her warmup. It was almost an improvement from last month, too. Almost.

The large room started filling with noise as bursts of fire, electricity and other things went flying. Laura turned to look at me again and I couldn’t help but comment on her clothes this time, the baggy shirt reaching almost past her knees as she sat bent over.

“You look like you’ve just robbed a GoodWill, Laura.”

She didn’t respond right away, thinking of good comeback I assumed.

“It’s all Perry gave me.” She finally said after a moment, not meeting my eyes. At least it explained the baggy shirt. She pointed to the class below. “Isn’t that Danny?”

I rolled my eyes at her, not surprised that she knew the girl already. “Yeah, that’d be Danny Lawrence. Captain of basically every sports team here at Silas, if you can even call them teams. She almost fried your eyebrows off last week if you remember?” I waggled my own eyebrows, making a whistling noise as my finger glided over one.

“We’ve met. She apologized.” She responded coldly and our conversation ended after that as we sat side by side. Everyone below continued tossing hits at the targets surrounding them with their array of powers, some even doing pretty cool flips and turns in the air. The young man teaching the class was making his rounds, taking the time to talk to each student in helpful attempts. An electric zap hit the bleachers a few rows down and Laura flinched, rubbing a hand to her shoulder that had been burnt last week.

I wondered if the medication she’d been given was helping her heal faster. “How’s the shoulder doing?”

She shrugged and I looked at my boots. “I’m sorry.”

Laura’s head suddenly turned to me, glaring. “What?” It kind of shocked me, and I raised my eyebrow in question.

“I said I was sorry.” I pointed to her shoulder.

She rubbed the side of her temples, hair looking more and more disheveled by the second.

“You astound me...” She whispered quietly, though it was clearly meant for me to hear.

“Excuse me? You’re lucky you weren’t hurt worse, cupcake. You should be thanking me,” I snapped back, unable to stop.

“God! Look, I don’t know why you dragged me to a smelly gym or why you’re so interested in me just sitting around with you, but I don’t want any part of it. I don’t even know why I followed you up here. You brought me to a crazy school that I didn’t even want to go to and now I’m stuck here until I don’t even know! You kidnapped me from my home and—“ She stood up at this, eyes darkening at me. “And I don’t have to sit here while you parade me around like some sort of rescued pet. I don’t belong here and you know it.”

My eyes slit as she started stomping down the bleachers, the scene she was making now catching the attention of some of the students below. They slowly stopped one by one to watch her as she paused near the middle of the rows. “I’m not one of you…” I heard her whisper, my ears helping with the distance.

Laura turned back around. “Why didn’t you just leave me there Carmilla? Or have called the god damn police!? Why couldn’t you have taken me to a different hospital, or somewhere, _anywhere_ else?” When her eyes looked into mine again I could see tears swimming in them, the sadness she was feeling finally cluing me in onto what had been the reason for her appearance and mood. I blinked twice, forcing my eyes human. What was wrong with me? Why had I brought her here and not elsewhere? Surely any hospital could have fixed her arm easily. But then she'd have been found out if they had taken a blood test.

“Laura I—“

“Save it, Carm.” She walked the rest of the way down the bleachers in a huff, Danny running over and meeting her at the bottom. As they chatted I watched Laura wipe a tear from her cheek, looking to me for a moment before turning away again angrily. Danny followed her gaze and started up the seats of the bleachers towards me.

“You’re dead, Karnstein.”

“Oh, butt out of it Big Red.” Despite being almost a foot taller, we were pretty evenly matched, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her bipolar bullshit. Even from the distance between us I could see fire dancing in her eyes, licking around the iris and pupil, and I so did not want burn marks on my shirt. I’d only wanted to cheer Laura up, maybe have her see some cool powers or something. But in actuality I had been the one to cause her this unhappiness and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I had hoped it would have all turned out for the better but it was the exact opposite and I beat myself up internally as Danny continued to climb the bleachers.

I snatched up my report packet and stood up, giving Danny the finger.

“You better leave Laura alone or I’ll—“

“You’ll what, burn down the gym? Get over yourself, Sunburn.”

A fireball the size of a tennis ball flew towards my head and I ducked out of the way, barely holding back a hiss.

“Fuck you.” I spat between fanged teeth. I leaped over the side of the bleachers, landing nimbly on my toes and fingers twenty feet below. I ran out and didn’t look back, Laura’s sketchpad under my arm amidst my papers.

The report I was to turn in for Danny was not going to be a pleasant one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory 'follow me at tumblr if you want to' post :D chiraven.tumblr.com


	6. Equilibrium Imbalances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura is a sad, confused little dandelion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally back to Laura and her POV again! :)

I woke up a lot that first night. The thin white sheets clung to my bare skin as my dripping hair stuck to my forehead, a headache that felt more like a migraine pounding in my skull. The sky outside a light gray with birds chirping and I sat up, seeing the impending sunrise.

My shoulder hurt like a bitch as I pulled the sheets away from me and after flinching, looked to see blisters forming around the vague hand-shaped burn in patches. I climbed out of the undoubtedly comfortable bed to see what all was in the bag Perry had given be last night and finding some soap, headed towards the bathroom in search of a washcloth and bandages of some sort with little hope of finding any.

After washing my shoulder and body, I put the clothes I had worn yesterday back on even though they smelled a little and checked out the small apartment-dorm thing I was in. It wasn’t very big, but more than enough for one person. It had a small living room with a large couch pushed next to one wall, an armchair to right with end tables beside them both. A television stood on a wooden stand at the adjacent wall with two large glass doors that led out to a small balcony. The balcony looked out onto the infinite expanse of woods Silas had surrounding it and I figured I had to be at least 3 stories up to be able to see the tops of the trees.

An expensive-looking kitchen was to the left of the front door and behind the living room couch. The wall separating the two had an opening cut out at the top and you could see the counter with the sink attached to it, an empty vase on the ledge between. With an electric stove installed as well as a large refrigerator, it all looked pretty new and rather unused, but clean. The bedroom I’d been in last night was to the right of the front door and the bathroom had two doors leading inside I noticed; one from the living room and the other from the bedroom. It held a bathtub with a showerhead above it along with a toilet and a sink shoved into the wall on the other side, super fancy and new as well.

I was sure this had been referred to as a school or university but I felt like this was more of an apartment than a dorm. Huh.

Well, whatever this place was, I had to admit it was beautiful. Maybe if I tell them my father and I couldn’t afford it, they’d let me go home then. I didn't think everyone just lived here for free.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts of last night and of my dad, keeping the tears I’d been about to shed at bay; I didn’t want to think about our previous conversation. I had to get out of this empty apartment, dorm, whatever the hell it was. I might be forced to be cooped up at this school but surely not this room. I’m sure I could take a look around. Isn’t that what Carmilla and I had done yesterday?

I went to leave the apartment and almost ran into Lola Perry herself, her hand stretched out as if to knock on the door I had just swung open. She let out a squeak as her hand went to her chest and I raised my eyebrows at her.

“Oh Gosh, Miss Hollis! I’m sorry, you frightened me. Did you sleep well?” Her hand waved around before resting on my bicep.

I shrugged her off, taking a step away. “Not really. And you can just call me Laura, you know,“ I turned and shut the door behind me, “did you um, need something Perry?”

She kindly ignored my brush-off and instead started pulling some papers out of a bag hanging by her hip. I did feel a little bad about my behavior towards her and LaFontaine last night, but it was whatever at this point. She seemed over it. I had mostly been upset at the whole situation and I had just shut down. I just couldn’t believe my dad. This was the man who made me take Krav Maga classes at the age of ten. Who taught me to cook and take care of myself, to be strong and independent. This was also the same man who was the most overprotective, paranoid father in the entire world and would call me three times a day just to make sure I was alive.

I just didn’t understand how he would possibly insist on me staying somewhere across the world with nothing available to communicate with.

Perry cleared her throat and handed me the papers she had been holding.

“So Laura, today I’ve pushed aside my plans to give you your own official Silas University campus tour!” Perry looked so excited, I don’t think the smile could be wiped off her face even if Sarah McLaughlin was playing on surround sound. “It might be rather short as I didn’t have much time to plan ahead for a full-day tour, but I hope you enjoy yourself along the way.”

When I didn’t respond to her she pulled out a plastic container from the same bag and handed it to me. “I also made you a brownie for breakfast,” She handed it to me and when I opened the container it smelled heavenly, “And I wanted to say I’m sorry about your dad, Laura.”

I looked in her eyes as I pulled the huge brownie out, nibbling the corner of it as I followed her down the stairs.

“I know you weren’t exactly informed of coming here and it definitely did _not_ go as planned. And I sincerely apologize about Carmilla. She is…well she’s a little out there and doesn’t follow many rules around the school. Any in fact…”

Perry started huffing and puffing about Carmilla while rolling her eyes as I devoured the rest of the brownie because, wow. Perry might be annoying but boy can she bake. I was almost tempted to ask if she had any more.

As if by magic, she handed me another brownie with a smile. “Everyone always asks for seconds,” She finished, ending her tirade on Carmilla.

I mumbled my thanks towards her and dug in, looking at the front of the first paper in front of me, which was a map. I turned it around and rotated it a few times but it didn’t make much sense either way.

“So as you might have figured out, this is one of our main dorm buildings," She said, gesturing to the building my dorm resided in as we walked out the front door, "There are six stories to this specific building but your dorm on the fourth. I hope you don’t mind?” I shook my head as we started walking down the sidewalk.

“Alright good, well if you’ll turn to the pamphlet I gave you under the campus map,” I did so, handing her back the now-empty containers, “you’ll notice that we just left Building 3. There are three buildings on campus that only hold dorm rooms. There are one, two and three bedroom options. If you would like a different option to a room Laura, just let me know. It can still be arranged in the next few days if one is available.” I nodded politely as we walked into the main building.

The brownies were making me feel better and I was kind of excited to follow Perry on this tour. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do and I did want to get out of my—the dorm I had slept in. Might as well get to know my way around without getting lost.

***

After remembering how confusing it had been yesterday when I had followed Carmilla around the many halls, I had hoped the map combined with the tour Perry led me on would have been educational and instructive. Turns out this school was a god damn maze. I felt like Jennifer Connelly entering the Labyrinth for the first time. I amusedly wondered where the tiny furry caterpillar was hiding and started humming “Magic Dance” as I followed Perry’s bright red bobbing curls around another sharp corner.

Eventually I recognized it enough to know the cafeteria was nearby; we passed a really weird painting on the wall of a man fishing in the grass that I remembered seeing yesterday evening. My nose lifted at the smell of food cooking nearby and I skipped a step closer to Perry.

“Perry, can we stop and get something to eat?”

She looked at me like I’d asked her to rob a bank. “Lunch isn’t for another two hours so we’ll have to wait until then. Oh right! The cafeteria is just down that hall we went through, back there, by the way. You go down through the large doorway to the left,” She pointed back the way we had just walked away from and to a large opening in the wall, “And you’ll find yourself in front of the cafeteria doors soon enough. Now—“

“Perr!” A voice called from above as Perry reached the end of the hall. According to the map in my hands that I was 63% sure I was reading wrong, there were a set of stairs nearby. I looked up after walking to the end of the hall and sure enough, LaFontaine was hanging their head two stories above us over a wooden railing, smiling widely at Perry and I. Their head disappeared for a moment as they came down the winding staircase towards us.

“Perr, hey! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. And you too! Hey Laura!” They gave me a big smile before turning back to Perry and my interest piqued as I wondered why they would be looking for the both of us. The two chatted for a few minutes before LaFontaine turned to me.

“After Perry’s Golden Tour, would you come to see me?”

“For what?” I asked hesitantly.

“I know you had some hesitations about everything we told you, and I wanted to show you my test results that I took from you last night. You know, from your blood and all that. If you wanted to see, that is…”

I nodded vigorously at them. Maybe I could prove they were wrong about me and be able to leave this stupid school! Not that I knew what these blood tests would even show, but a girl could hope. They gave me a wide smile before turning back to the taller red-head.

Perry and LaFontaine chatted for a few more minutes before we headed our separate ways, LaFontaine heading through a tiny portal they made on the wall with a holler to see us both later. I barely made it ten steps before Perry started talking nonstop again and I wondered how long this was going to take as I followed her.

***

Perry’s tour had basically taken the entire day and I really couldn’t have cared less to try to find LaFontaine’s room afterwards. I decided I'd just go tomorrow and see what they wanted because I was so hungry that I was pretty sure my stomach was slowly eating its inner lining. Rather unfortunate circumstances, as I also had a killer headache. My head had been bothering me more than usual lately, but I hoped that eating some food would help. Perry told me that the cafeteria offered food up until 10 o’clock and I wasn’t sure the time but the sun was sinking lower and lower in the dark blue sky, so I made my way from where Perry had ended her tour, one of two sports fields, and walked across the grassy field back to the entrance of the main building.

I was able to find the cafeteria without too much trouble, trying not to use the map Perry had given me, but getting food was a whole other story. When Carmilla had taken me to the cafeteria, we’d gone the back way. The medical area was not a part of Perry's tour however, as it was unfortunately restricted by students. Which is why I entered the extravagant cafeteria in a different door from last time and made my way to the right of the slew of tables to where a young woman stood. I walked up to her as I read the food options. A small list of meals they were offering were written on a fancy chalkboard next to where the woman stood on the counter, picking her nails, with the meals written on it with colored markers. I skimmed through the small list: a salad with toppings I'd never heard of, a bowl of soup with half a grilled cheese sandwich on the side, or a plate of chicken, potatoes and a cup of corn.

"What would you like, hun?" The woman said with a twang.

"Whatever will take the least amount of time to make, I guess," My stomach grumbled as the woman gave me a wink.

"Comin' right up."

She whipped up a grilled cheese sandwich in no time at all and after only a few minutes I was walking away with a small tray of food in my hands, a cup of water on the tray as well.

There were a few other people in the cafeteria but I took a seat near the windows at an empty table, taking a large gulp of water after inhaling half of the steaming soup. It was absolutely delicious and I savored the first real meal I’d eaten in over a day, moaning from how good it was. I dipped the grilled cheese in the soup, slowing my eating from inhaling to polite chewing while looking around. It really was a cool school and I wondered what year it had been built. The outside looked older than dirt, with cracks in the rocks along the walls and some of the archways looking rather dangerous and read to collapse, yet rustic and castle-like. The inside however was a different story entirely.

Perry had said that the dorm buildings had been built at different times than the school, being as the school had started to grow in population the last few years. They did look in much better condition and better furnished than the school building itself. The cafeteria seemed another exception to the old-and-dilapidated state of the school and now that the lights were all on, I could see how posh everything looked, with the shiny long wooden tables and matching chairs, the intricate designs in the wood telling me it wasn’t cheap stained oak. Also, for a building this old, it had great central air.

As I continued to eat I spotted someone heading my way and squinted, seeing if I knew them. I’d tried to stay inconspicuous and away from the few others sitting in here but this person had apparently not gotten the message. I looked up from my food, I had to, she was so tall, as the woman stopped in front of me with a friendly smile and all I saw was red. I slapped my hand over it with a hiss as a hot pain made itself known behind my right eye with red encompassing my vision against my eyelid. The girl was suddenly in front of me from where she'd been across the table.

“Woah! Hey, are you alright?” She said worriedly. I nodded after a few seconds, the pain already receding considerably.

“Yeah, sorry. That was weird. It was just…” As I lifted my hand away to look at her, I trailed off. The tall red-head in front of me was the girl who’d thrown a ball of fire at my face yesterday.

I blinked twice. “Yeah, um, no worries. I’m fine. Really,” I assured her as she gave me a look, “I just had an…eye cramp.”

“An eye cramp…”

“Yep.”

“Is that even a thing?” She looked at me skeptically, but I could tell she was trying not to smile. She was kind of adorable.

“Oh totally! It’s sort of like a leg cramp where you know, your muscles in your leg cramp up and it hurts, but like in my eye, only behind it, because there’s totally muscles there…I think…and well it doesn’t feel too good either—“ The girl started chuckling and I stopped rambling. I was pretty sure I’d get another ‘eye cramp’ if I kept spouting gibberish, so I was glad to shut up.

Super Tall Red Head finally took a seat across from me. “I came over to introduce myself to you as well as formerly apologize. About, you know, yesterday,” she looked away at this, scrunching her shoulders up slightly, “about the whole ‘throwing a ball of fire at your face’ incident?”

I swallowed the bite of sandwich I’d taken while she had been talking. I hadn’t thought she’d remember me from yesterday, but apparently my clumsy half-dive had made some sort of impression. “No biggie. Things happen, so uh…it’s okay.” I gave her a supportive smile and she seemed to relax.

“So, you’re Laura, right?” I nodded and her hand stretched out to me. “I’m Danny. Perry mentioned we had a new student and I figured that was you, so thought I’d say hi. I saw her giving one of her unnecessary tours earlier with you. Didn’t think it’d be the girl I almost killed less than a day ago though.” We smiled at each other and I continued eating; the food was helping my head immensely as well as my mood.

“So how are you liking Silas so far?” She asked. It was one of the many questions I’d been trying to avoid but was inevitable from every new person I was bound to meet. I wiped my mouth off and gave her a one-shoulder shrug.

“It’s alright, I guess,” she kind of shrunk a little at my answer so I amended with, “But I’ve only been here a day so…I’m sure it’ll get better.” Probably. I didn’t really want Danny to know how upset I was with the whole situation. She was being nice and she was also the first person who hadn’t tried to kidnap me, lie to me or inject me with something foreign at this school. She’d come to say hello to me just because I was new, which was really nice, and apologize for accidentally using my face as target practice.

“So you came here last night?” I nodded again with my mouth full, and swallowed quickly. “Sorry Laura, you can eat.”

“No no, it’s okay,” I cleared my throat, “but yeah, I’m not sure what time or anything, morning maybe? It was all rather arbitrary, I suppose. See, I met Carmilla at a b—“

Danny interrupted with a huge groan, “Well that’s unfortunate. She was your tracker then, I take it?”

“My what?” I said through another bite of sandwich. I’d pretty much given up on not talking with food in my mouth but Danny seemed indifferent with my manners.

“You know, tracker.”

I sort of just stared at her, not really getting it.

“She was—it was her job to collect you. That’s how we all got here.”

I thought about it as I tuned Danny out slightly.

Carmilla’s job was to collect me? Did she know what I was before? She said she didn’t… I mean, I’m not one of these…people. I’m just me. I didn’t have wings sprouting out my back or fire shooting from my fingertips. I was completely normal. I _am_ completely normal.

I was staring really hard at a speck of nothing on the table when Danny got my attention again, waving her hand in front of my eyes.

“Sorry, what?”

Her small laugh was intoxicating and I couldn’t help but smile sheepishly back. “I asked when you first found out?”

“Found out what?”

“What your powers are.”

She said it with such happiness that I didn’t even know how to respond. Do I lie to her? Do I tell the truth? What do I say?

I looked at my food and shrugged, pushing the leftover soup around. My appetite was suddenly gone. “I don’t…really…”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said sympathetically after I trailed off into silence.

“It’s not—“ I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck, “Never mind.”

“Well, in any case, sorry Carmilla had to be the one to bring you in. She can be…kind of intense.” It wasn’t really said as a compliment as Danny seemed hostile towards anything involving Carmilla. So had Perry, now that I thought of it, though Perry’s hostility compared to Danny’s was much more tame. She continued her negativity against Carmilla with passion.

“She sort of just does whatever she wants around this place. I’ve asked Perry plenty of times to have her job, I could do so much better than her. I don’t think it’s right that _she’s_ the bloody face of Silas to half these poor kids. Gives us a rather bad impression, don’t you think? ” Danny’s hands were tucking her hair behind her left ear angrily, red lines fading in and out around her pupils. "Being the Dean’s daughter, she thinks she can get away with whatever she wants. She doesn’t even attend classes! I have no idea what she honestly does all day besides brood and sleep.” It was kind of funny, even if it was about Carmilla.

I thought back to yesterday, when I had first seen Carmilla in the hospital room. “She does brood and sleep a lot, doesn’t she?”

Danny laughed, agreeing with me, then stood up. “Well Laura, it was nice to finally meet you. Again.”

I smiled up at her. “You too Danny.”

“Want to meet up for lunch tomorrow? I can introduce you to some of the other kids around here. If you’d like.”

“That’d…actually be pretty cool of you. Thanks?”

“Of course. Do you know your schedule yet?” I shook my head at her. I didn’t want to be here long enough to even _get_ a schedule but I didn’t want to tell her that. She was being really nice to me and I didn’t want it to stop, flame-spouting hands or not.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow at noon?” Danny said with a grin and I gave her one back, a real one because I really was looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

“Yes, definitely.” I hoped the food was as good as it was tonight.

***

I dreamt that night that crows ate my eyes out with glistening beaks. The sun in the distance was a red ring in the far distance, hanging low in the dark sky. The only other scenery were fading images of old farm houses and barns in the far distance that had black trees nearby. My eyes burned so much from the heated glow of the sun that when I woke up in a sweat I all but ran to the bathroom, spraying the cold shower in them and on my face. I didn't close my eyes any longer than I had to and let the water blur my vision. Dark images still battled under my eyelids.

I took four ibuprofen after that, sitting on the toilet seat and pressing a cold washcloth to my forehead and then the burn on my shoulder after re-wetting it. The burn was actually much better than yesterday; still blistery in parts and sore, but healing. I hoped it wouldn't leave a scar.

A tear escaped from the corner of my eye and I wiped it away with the cloth. This was literally the week from hell.

I didn't go back to sleep. Perry brought me a small box later that morning of clothes she’d found for me to wear since I didn’t have any of my own. Yet, I silently prayed. I really did try to be appreciative about it too, since I didn’t want to wear the same clothes for the third day in a row, but wow. These clothes looked older than the school itself and smelled like it, too. I thanked her and dumped them on the ground once she’d left. I searched for a tank top in the pile while digging through scratchy stiff clothes but I could only find short and long-sleeved shirts.

I threw one of the short-sleeved ones on and my jeans again and sulked when the shirt fell almost to my knees. I was trying to decide if I really was so against smelling or looking like a hobo, but decided it didn’t matter what I looked like. Who am I here to impress?

I grabbed the map Perry had given me yesterday, looking towards the thick 'L' I’d written in black sharpie with a circle around it for where LaFontaine’s room was and made my way there.

***

“You look like you’ve just won the jackpot at afternoon Bingo.”

“Ughhh. Shut up.” I shoved LaFontaine in the arm as I entered their room, trying to tie the bottom of the shirt to make it smaller. It ended up making me look more like a parachute and I undid the knot with a click of my tongue, letting it fall back down to the almost-dress it was.

“LaFontaine, I came to meet you for my so-called ‘test results’, so if you could just get to the point, that’d be great.”

"Well hello to you, too, Laura the Grouch. By all means, make yourself at home."

I flopped against a chair in their apartment with a pout. It was furnished similarly to my own, but was located inside the school building itself and had much more decorations. Most of the living room and kitchen was full of electronics and computer things, science gadgets and stuff. A poster of the periodic table of elements was stuck to one of the walls in the living room, the edges at the bottom curling slightly. Wires were everywhere on the floor, with books and random items covering most of the tables and counter space. The kitchen sink was overflowing with plates and cups.

LaFontaine went into another room for a moment, the bedroom I assumed, and came back with some papers in their hands.

“How do you keep anything organized in here?” I asked as they handed me the top paper.

“Hush up, you. See that paper there?”

"Yeah."

The page was filled with different charts and graphs for the most part, with some numbers and percentages that were gibberish.

I gave LaFontaine an emotionless stare, “Looks like a mess. What are you showing me?”

“I’m showing you your test results from Monday. See, these numbers here show you the levels of a few different things in your blood and saliva.” They started pointing to the numbers at the top of the page. My eyes grew heavy just looking at it and I closed them for a moment before focusing on LaFontaine’s words as they continued.

“This table chart here," they tapped a chart of numbers at the bottom, "Shows whether the person is Non-human. The left is a normal human and the right one is yours. Notice how your numbers are a much higher than the one on the left?” I mumbled a yes and they continued. “I tested a few other things like your DNA and brain function and it’s off the chart! Here, I brought this to compare. These are my own test results.”

Looking at the two papers, I noticed a lot of the things were different, though the categories and pictures were set up the same. “So you’re showing me that I’m not like you. Congratulations, you’ve proven what I've been trying to tell you this whole time. Can I go home now?”

“Lose the attitude, please. I’m trying to help you out, Hollis.”

“How’d you know my last name?”

“Lucky guess,” They didn’t meet my eyes at their reply though which told me it wasn’t the truth, but I guess it wasn’t that important, “Anyway, your numbers on the pages are different than mine because I’m a human. This shows that you’re different, Laur, as in not plain ol' human. I wanted to show you this because you seemed so adamant that you well…weren’t.” They gave me a sympathetic smile.

“How do I know that this is really test results from me and you didn’t just put my name on here? How do I know that it's really your info compared to mine? How can I trust you?” I finished quietly. LaFontaine rolled their eyes.

“Well, you can start by _trying_ to trust me, and maybe telling me how you’re feeling with all of this? I mean c'mon, what have I done besides try to help you? I really am on your side, L.” LaFontaine said, taking the papers from my hands before tilting their head to the side and catching my eyes with their own.

When I didn’t respond, they continued,. “Look Laura, I know this isn’t exactly how you thought your week would go and I can’t really tell you I know how you feel, because I don’t. I came to Silas willingly. I had a choice of whether or not to leave home and come here, and you didn’t. And I don’t know what’s going on inside you, powers-wise. I wish I did, because it’s hella powerful, but science can’t tell us everything unfortunately,” They looked actually sad about that last part, "As with the trusting part, that's on you I guess."

Yeah, I guess that's true.

“I can tell you that you’re almost at the climax of your powers though! Your mutagen levels are crazy right now! You are different Laura, but it’s a good different. It’s a _great_ different, really! You’re going to be so powerful, I can tell. Once we figure out what you can do, it’s going to be amazing. I can feel it.” I felt like they were more excited than I was about the ‘powers’ thing, which was not at all.

“Can we talk about something else?” I tucked my hair behind my ears, fidgeting. LaFontaine gave me a funny look. It had also bothered me, their use of the word ‘we’ a moment before, but I let it go. They quickly got the message to change the subject.

“Want something to drink?” They went to the kitchen before I could even respond, coming back with a glass of water for each of us and sitting down on the couch after handing me a glass.

“Thanks.”

“How’s the shoulder?”

I took a sip of water, “It’s alright. Getting better, I think." I poked at one of the tiny healing blisters.

“Need me to take a look at it?” I was pretty sure their eyes lit up at the aspect of medical assistance, but I was also pretty sure LaFontaine was a scientist, not a doctor. I shook my head with a small smile.

“No, it’s okay. Thanks.”

For a moment they didn’t say anything, looking deep in thought before letting out a sigh. “Laura, I really am sorry about all this. I don’t know the whole story but knowing you weren’t Karnstein’s mark meant that you didn’t get to prepare for anything. Or pack, obviously,” They lifted the edge of my shirt with a laugh. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you better clothes, by the way.”

“Cool.” I took another sip of water. “Thanks, LaFontaine.”

“No problem.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes after that, both drinking our water as I re-read the test results I was given. I set the cup down on the table after finishing and stood. LaFontaine looked at me and I cleared my throat. “So let’s say you’re right and I do have…powers,” I looked at the papers again, staring at the high number in the ‘mutagens’ slice of the colorful pie chart, “How do I…how would I know what they are? You know, hypothetically," I added quickly.

LaFontaine’s eyebrows scrunched up at that and they set their own glass down, still half full. “Well, that’s a complicated question that I’m not sure I can really answer for you right now.”

Not what I was hoping to hear.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you can do that’s unique? Or different? Odd? Special?” LaFontaine said to me curiously. “Or maybe something you could do that no one else could? Maybe since you were younger?”

I shook my head no but the thought of my recent headaches and my sleeping schedule being off came to the forefront of my mind. Both had no real cause or explanation, so maybe...

No. Having bad dreams and headaches didn’t mean I had mysterious superpowers. Did it? I didn’t think I’d want any powers that came from those symptoms, anyway. I’d probably shoot lasers out of my eyeballs on accident.

I shook my head, “Not…that I can think of, really.”

“Well, I’m just as curious as you are about your powers. So let me know when you find out, will ya?”

“Sure,” I said after laughing lightly.

“You aren’t the first person to not know who you are or what you can do, ya know. Hopefully soon you’ll find out though!”

“First person to wha-? I know who I am. But yeah, yeah hopefully.” You're gonna be sorely disappointed, LaFontaine...

“Also, you’re really not registered to be a student here, not yet anyway since you weren’t on the list and all. Well, Karnstein’s list. But you really _should_ have been on the list, which is just confusing. Anyway, as much as I don’t want to say this, it’s actually a good thing Carmilla brought you in.”

Really? I didn’t want to think of what a ‘fabulous’ idea it had been and how lucky I should feel. I tried to ignore them instead, feeling suddenly more morose than I had before.

“How’d you convince her to bring you along again?” LaFontaine asked me.

Convince her?

“Convince her? I didn’t convince her,” I continued with a sneer, “she did it on her own.”

It was hard for me to remember everything that night. I was still wondering what happened to my cell phone, I really couldn't remember. “Back at this parking lot near my uh, college. She had brought me here to fix my shoulder after I had passed out she’d said. I uh, don't remember it too well.”

LaFontaine was nodding and scratching the back of their neck. “Well, that certainly doesn’t sound like Carmilla Karnstein, but alright. Good thing either way, right?”

Yeah, good thing. I kind of wished I had at least one item of my own here, or a friend I knew. Something that was familiar.

“Are we allowed to have pets here?” I asked randomly, thinking of Nala and wondered if I’d be able to bring her or have her here.

LaFontaine’s shake of their head answered my question and I tried not to be disappointed. “Maybe a fish? If you hide it from Perry,” they said with a wink, "Though I have no clue what you'd be able to feed it..."

“Yeah, alright.” I started fiddling with the bottom of my too-long shirt, picking at the hem that was pulling apart.

LaFontaine stood up after a moment. “C’mon Bingo Grandma, let’s get you registered for some super awesome mystery power-discovering classes.”

***

Lunch that afternoon was rather interesting. The cafeteria had been much busier than my dinner last night and it’d taken me a few minutes to find Danny, despite the fact that she was taller than almost everyone in there. After making my way towards the table she was at with a tray of food, she had introduced me to at least twenty people seated there with her. I only remembered two of their names, Natalie and Kirsch, but they’d all been very nice and welcoming.

The few people that I was sitting next to had made small talk with me, Kirsch being one of them, and Danny kept calling him an idiot. She kind of made the term sound endearing though, but I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not. He didn't seem to mind what she called him anyway.

Kirsch was one of those guys who said ‘bro’ a lot and referred to most of the girls at the table as ‘hotties’ or ‘cuties’ or something along those lines mixed with the person’s actual name. He reminded me of a very energetic puppy and even if he seemed a tad dense, he was really nice and funny. At one point he’d made some sort of monster out of his hamburger bun and other pieces of food and utensils, making growling noises and popping up at different tables to try and scare people. Kirsch also had a really cool power that he abused the shit out of, which finally had me remembering him as the kid I’d seen my first day here who had been running around the track faster than a bullet, Kirsch a blur around the cafeteria. It was the coolest power I’d seen yet, besides Danny’s, and I was almost mad at myself for envying any of them or being excitedly curious of my own supposed powers. Almost.

I didn’t know where my classes were going to be and I didn’t remember any of the names of them or the teachers when I signed up with LaF earlier, but Danny did offer to show me where they were when I got the schedule. I accepted and thanked her for inviting me to lunch before leaving. I’d been getting some weird color flashes behind my eyes, similar to when I'd first met Danny the day before, near the end of the lunch hour and so excused myself and quickly made my way out of the cafeteria.

***

When I got back to my little apartment, the conversation I’d had with LaFontaine had wedged itself into the forefront of my mind. My face felt hot and I had colors blending my peripherals into colorful double-images every time I blinked but I couldn’t stop the thought of the whole ‘powers’ conversation coming up and making me feel like it could be the cause of how I was feeling now. Which was absurd, but what the hell was wrong with me then?

I rubbed my eyes and downed three ibuprofen after locking the door to my dorm and stripped down to my underwear and bra. After splashing cold water on my face in the kitchen sink, I tilted my head to drink from the faucet itself, feeling like I couldn't get enough water. My body felt like it was burning up now and it was hard to tell if I had a fever or not, but it sure felt like it. Maybe I had food poisoning from lunch? I was in Europe after all, maybe they had something unique in their foods not found in the States.

It was still bright outside, being barely past one in the afternoon, but since I was on the fourth floor and had a room at the back of the building towards the woods I opened my balcony doors and sat on the carpet in front of them. The soft breeze blew in and across my face, cooling my skin. It felt like heaven. I laid on the ground and and I drifted to sleep.

When I woke up a few hours later I was pretty sure I had some sort of drug-induced food poisoning, complete with hallucinations.

Everything, and I mean _everything,_ in the room was completely inverted in color and I was so nauseous. The dark furniture was blinking at me like strobe lights and the stainless steel fridge looked like it was trying to melt into the wall.

I threw up twice, wiping the tears from my eyes after the second bout and leaning my cheek against the cold toilet seat. It felt amazing against my burning face and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep there for a few minutes before waking back up and slumping on my bed.

The dreams were the cherry on top, complete with shadows that chased me and horrible things being screamed, with the brand new attraction of my body slowly burning in different areas from little balls of fire that came from seemingly nowhere. At the end of the dream I saw my dad running through our house in the country, fear in his eyes as men in strange-looking clothing raided our house. The kitchen looked like I’d tried to cook again, only it wasn’t funny and didn’t end with my dad and I on the kitchen floor laughing and eating ice cream from the carton.

I finally got a few hours of dreamless sleep after I watched my dad being dragged away with his hands behind his back and tossed into a black van, the oddly-clothed men disappearing with everything else. It all faded into the distance and my vision was thankfully just a black and silent screen after that.

***

A few days had passed and shockingly I looked like death incarnate. Kidding, it's not a shock.

I woke for the morning and haphazardly brushed my teeth, spitting out pieces of dried-up vomit from the back of my mouth that were from the night before. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a shower but I honestly didn’t care, throwing on some undergarments and clothes from the pile of clothes that were still on the floor. I didn’t even pay attention to what I’d thrown on, but I wasn’t naked and I was comfortable.

I had yet to hear from my dad. Phones apparently weren't a thing here as I had yet to find one anywhere besides the one in Perry's office. The only thing going for me was that I had to wait to start the classes that I had signed up for, which was perfectly fine with me since I couldn't remember what they were anyway. It gave me more time to be a hermit. BI wasn't hallucut inating anymore either. Yay.

I found a sketchpad on one of the tables next to my couch yesterday that had had a note written on it with Perry’s number and a note to call if I needed anything. Call her with what, I don't know.

I ripped the note out and tossed it in the garbage can, my stringy hair falling in my eyes. After snooping through the drawers and cabinets for awhile I finally found some writing utensils.

I sat out on the stone floor of the balcony, the doors pulled open again. I was eternally grateful the room wasn’t on the ground floor as a quiet breeze blew against my face and I closed my eyes, spinning the pencil between my fingers in thought of what to draw.

***

After my eyes had dried, Danny walked me back to my room.

I couldn’t _believe_ Carmilla. What was wrong with her!? I know my reaction might have been a little irrational, but I was just so angry at her.

Since I had started feeling a little better, I'd decided to go on a walk through the campus, eventually finding myself in the school's courtyard. I hadn’t been through there since the time Perry had shown me around the first time.

It was deserted and for good reason; it looked like a complete dump. There was a square cement pond in the middle that had a fountain, which didn't work. The stone beam-looking things that surrounded the small yard had vines clinging to every inch of them and hanging down in tangled lines. The benches were also made of stone, and falling apart. Jeez.

I had still felt like total crap, but I felt well enough to get some fresh air, but as the colors in the pond started blending the blues of the water with the browns of the rusted pennies at the bottom I leaned against the wall and pulled myself up into the little window above me to sit and lean against the side, away from the water.

My eyes started bothering me again after an hour but I continued sketching, drawing whatever came to my mind. I was already in the middle of the book with sketches filling the pages. The black on white was relaxing and helped my eyes more than looking at anything with color or movement.

I was shading the left side of a sketch I’d done of Nala when a nudge had interrupted me. I looked up and there stood Carmilla in all her snarky glory.

During lunch yesterday I’d gotten a few different reviews of the girl, and everyone single one of them had pointed to the her being some sort of hated martyr for one reason or another. It had been unnerving and I was a little peeved at her to begin with for my own obvious reasons, the bits of information I’d heard yesterday not helping, but I’d gone with her anyway after she put out her hand to me. No matter what I heard from others, she had still been kind to me. Sort of.

Besides, I liked the feel of her hand in mine.

I followed her to a stinky gymnasium to watch some students play target practice with their assorted powers. One of them ended up being Danny and after mentioning so, it was apparent that the hate Danny felt towards Carmilla was definitely returned.

And then Carmilla had had the balls to apologize to me about Monday and I’d completely blown up at her. Not that she didn’t deserve everything I said or that it was wrong, but it hadn’t all been the truth exactly either, me not belonging here and all. Because honestly, I really didn’t have a truthful answer to that yet. And I was starting to think I did belong here.

I was starting to believe everything about me having powers and I didn’t want to admit it but I was freaking the fuck out. My emotions paired with how I had felt all day had been the main reason for how loud I'd gotten, and after Danny had seen me stomping down the bleacher steps, she’d gone to defend me. I'd never asked her to but did nothing to stop her from joining my angry charade.

After a snide comment, Danny had thrown a fireball at Carmilla and the girl all but jumped over the railing of the bleaches and down the twenty-some rows of benches to the ground in one effortless leap out the doors before I’d even had a chance to comprehend it.

I had asked Danny what her problem was, Carmilla’s, though what I really wanted to know was what her powers were, but she’d just snarled and said, “That’s Karnstein on a good day. Don’t get mixed up with her tricks.” And she had walked me back to my dorm without another word about her. I had admitted to her as we got closer to my door about my headaches and she suggested I go to the school hospital to get checked out. I promised to first thing in the morning, though how serious I was on keeping to the promise so strictly was in the air. I couldn't remember where the hospital was anyway, and unless I was on the brink of death I didn't see the point.

Danny left after making sure I was okay and I shut the door, sighing in frustration while rubbing the bridge of my nose. I realized I didn’t have my sketchpad when I sat on the couch with a glass of water, my pencil poking me in my hip from where it sat in my pocket. I took it out and threw it across the room with a pout.

I felt nauseous and unwell the rest of the night and ended up watching television for the next few hours, mostly reruns of Golden Girls which was in English, thank God. My eyes at least felt better than earlier and the room had stayed normal colors, too, so that was a plus.

Close to eleven there was a knock at the door and I got up off the couch to see who it was, but when I opened the door to peer out, the hallway was empty. I was about to close the door when a dark spot on the floor caught my attention.

It was my sketchpad. The one I’d left in the gymnasium that afternoon.

I wondered who had knocked on my door in the first place, but picked up the book and closed and locked the door again. Flopping back on my couch which I decided to finally claim, I flipped through the pages. Drawings of different things popped out at me and I thumbed over the one I’d done yesterday of the trees surrounding Silas. I didn’t know what the genus’ or species were for each, whatever it was called, but they had been incredibly beautiful and easy to copy. I liked the taller ones better and had added some unrealistic birds near the top branches.

I turned to the next page, the drawing of Nala I’d done earlier being on it, and ran my pointer finger near a part in her neck I’d been shading. It surprised me how well it was easy to draw her from memory alone. I hadn't seen her in, what now, two weeks? I wasn't positive.

When I turned to the next page something dropped onto the floor and I bent to pick it up.

It was a large white flower. It was obviously fresh but had been flattened down and I wondered how it had gotten in my sketchpad. I was sure I would have noticed if it had been there and I had been nowhere near any flowers like these. I’d never seen it one like it before, but it was very beautiful. I spun it in my fingers then smelled it, humming with a smile as it still had a slight aroma coming from it before turning to the page of my sketch pad the flower had fallen from. The page should have been blank, only it wasn’t. A note was scrawled onto the page, along with an image next to it.

I set the flower gently on the coffee table in front of me and read the beautiful calligraphy that was written on the page.

_Laura,_

_Leontopodium Alpinum, ‘Edelweiss’; a Latin adaptation of the Greek word leontopódion, meaning ‘lions’s paw’._

_It’s the national flower of Austria. One of its many meanings is the symbol of freedom. They grow all around the forests of Silas and are quite a beautiful sight.  
_

_Laura, please don't lose faith. Silas is an inescapable prison it feels like at times, I know this all too well, but you are not alone._

_I’ll do my best to fix my mistake and get you home._

_And you were right, you don’t belong here. I’m sorry._

_-Carmilla_

A distinctly large paw print was marked on the paper with dirt next to where the flower had been pressed. It was almost as large as my own hand.

I closed the sketchpad slowly, leaning back into the couch, and stared at the pressed flower still on the table in front of me where I'd set it and sighed. I wasn’t sure what Carmilla’s intentions were with the flower and note, but it definitely was thoughtful. And apologetic, if I were being honest. It made me want to forgive her and I was still unsure if I truly wanted to. I picked the flower back up and twirled it softly again.

I suppose Carmilla wasn’t as bad as I thought her to be. Maybe the rumors and opinions from the others were clouding my judgment.

I made a mental note to look for her tomorrow and thank her for returning my sketchpad and flower. I twirled it until my hand got sore and fell asleep against the couch cushions, Golden Girls still playing in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to how Laura's doing. I hope it makes sense :) enjoy! Let me know what you think! Likes, dislikes, ideas, whatever.  
> Any and all mistakes are mine, but I appreciate making them known! I can only re-read so much before it blends into a blob of words. 
> 
> P.S. Hi Danny! :D  
> P.S.S. This was 15 pages on my word document. Bahahhaa.


	7. When Stars Start to Align

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla's a cutie and babysitting is fun?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the obnoxiously long wait. I have a real, adult job now that takes up 90% of my time, with a part-time job on top of that. :D Wahoo!  
> Anyway! I really hope this is a good addition. I've finally touched on Laura's 'powers', but it's just begun!  
> Let me know what you think! Please! I love everyone's respective opinions and perspectives, and I've got so many ideas and can't wait to share them.
> 
> P.S. Only 16 more days until the Season 2 finale!!! So pumped.
> 
> Carm's POV today, my lovelies :)

I’d been in bed for hours, staring widely at my brown ceiling and trying every imaginable way to get some shuteye. So far there were 2,384 sheep in my room and I wanted to murder them all.

I usually never had problems falling asleep, quite the opposite in fact. Ever since my argument with Laura however, I’d been replaying everything that had happened between us, both today and since we'd first met. I had never expected her to freak out at me and I definitely had not expected her to say what she did. I mean, I did save her life, the least she could do was be grateful. It really wasn't my fault she turned out to be a freaking non-human. LaFontaine had said so and they wouldn’t lie to me, not when it came to something like this. Laura was supposed to be here. Maybe I should have asked to see proof.

But trying to convince _her_ that was like pulling teeth. From that annoyingly beautiful mouth. I rubbed at my eyes.

Sure, Laura was pretty. Beautiful, in fact. But so what. Hell, she didn’t even know what her powers were and she refused to accept them in the first place. I almost wished I had never brought her here, that I had never gone to that shitty small-town café, that I’d left before that crappy beer… That I’d gotten Derek to Silas before chance could interfere with all this shit. Why couldn’t I clear my head of all this?

I rolled onto my stomach for the hundredth time, closing my eyes tighter to try and force my brain asleep. The way she’d looked at me earlier, with such resentment…

“Jesus Christ.” I threw my blankets off, clawing my fingers down my face. I was never getting to sleep.

***

I climbed up one of the pines near the edge of the forest surrounding the school, the night temperature cool and refreshing. After I’d given up on sleep I just couldn’t be inside my apartment any longer; it felt so stuffy and the fresh air in Silas' woods always helped clear my head. My nails elongated enough to grip the bark and pull myself to a thick branch near the top and I leaned against the trunk with relief. It smelled so good out here.

My legs swung back and forth on either side of the trunk with my arms crossed for balance as looked up through the thin needles and leaves above. There were very few lights around campus at night, late-night walks against the rules and all, and it made the stars in the sky stand out like billions of large glittering fireflies. It always astounded me, how small we really were in the grand scheme of it all, just a speck of a speck in the universe really. And I still couldn't keep my thoughts from bringing me back to Laura.

Compared to when I'd first met her, it was like she’d done a one-eighty, the gloom and doom like a little black rain cloud atop her head. Whether it was her powers that she wouldn’t accept she had or something else that was the cause, I wasn’t sure, but I decided that it had been a mistake on my end to bring her here. And I knew that she blamed me for it. As she should.

I scratched an itch on my neck, a mosquito probably, before I heard a too-familiar shriek followed by a light blinking on in one of the apartments next to where I sat. It was followed by the muffled echoing of vomiting and…sobbing? What the hell?

I stood up, measuring the distance between where the balcony stood from me; it wasn’t too far, maybe ten feet. I tensed my muscles and crouched as best I could, balancing on my toes before pushing off the branch and landing on the thin metal railing that surrounded the balcony. The metal swayed slightly and I jumped down, glad that there was no one around.

I paused to listen and make sure it really was Laura’s place. Whoever was in there getting sick sounded awful and after a few seconds of silence, I heard quiet sobbing. Breaking into her apartment though? Every scenario I thought of ended negatively if I just came barging through her balcony door in the middle of the night.

Then I had another thought. Laura _loved_ animals. Her sketchbook had been full of them when I’d flipped through it. Not that I had flipped through it or anything...

I didn’t think on it any longer and began stripping off my layers of clothes, wrapping them all into my leather jacket tightly. The wind picked up just as I set the bundled ball in the corner. “Bloody hell…”

The door opened silently with a turn of the handle and I listened for a moment, but Laura wasn’t sounding much better so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and felt my body shift and shrink. In my mind I wasn’t thinking of any particular type of feline, just something small and tame, housecat-ish, and so I came out looking like a dark burnt toast-color of a Somali. Darker than the normal breed since it was my natural hair color, but close enough.

I let out a soft meow as I padded through her apartment, getting closer to where I could hear her. When I peeked around the door, I saw Laura sitting next to the toilet with her forehead against her knees. I thought about saying something but figured she would be even more freaked out if a talking cat were suddenly in her apartment so I remained mute. Laura was sniffling and I watched a teardrop fall to the floor between her legs.

I let out another meow and she lifted her tear-streaked face to look at me after finally hearing my second meow. She seemed to panic for only a moment, rubbing her eyes angrily with one hand, a wet cloth in the other.

“Kitty. Hi kitty-kitty…” I padded closer to her, brushing past the bathroom door and pushing it open a few more inches with a creak.

“Are you real?” Laura’s second response was much more exhausted-sounding and I blinked, twitching a pointy ear before walking closer. My nose poked her knee, my large eyes focusing on her own. She eventually reached out and began scratching under my chin with one finger. I purred loudly so she would be able to hear it and she sniffed again, continuing to scratch along my cheeks and neck. I’d seen enough people-and-cat interactions to know how they acted without giving myself away that I wasn’t a real housecat or whatever. Laura wiped her eyes after a few moments with the wet cloth and stood up shakily, flushing the toilet and splashing her face and neck with water.

I followed her out to her dark bedroom as she shuffled slowly back to her bed, pulling the sheets over her and curling into a ball. She’d just been very sick it seemed but it didn’t make much sense as to why, for she didn’t seem to have a fever or anything actually wrong with her to warrant such actions. I waited a moment before jumping on after her. Another meow came from me as I sat on the pillow she wasn’t using. I wanted her to tell me what was wrong, if she was alright, why she had just been throwing up and crying, but Laura obviously didn’t speak cat or read minds, and she of course didn't know I was me and could understand her. Guess I could check those powers off the list at least.

Laura poked her head up from under the sheet, “You were the cat in my dream.” I tilted my head to the side in question. She dreamt of me?

“I had a dream, and in it there was a cat hiding under my bed. It looked just like you. Only, not…bigger,” She buried her head farther into the pillow, relaxing a tad, “Then it jumped out and tried to attack me. I couldn’t breathe after that and,” she shrugged at that, “I dunno, a bit after that I woke up...” I flicked my tail back and forth, waiting for her to say more but she didn’t. Her eyes closed and after a short time I could hear her breaths become deeper in sleep. I’d almost forgotten it was still the middle of the night.

Laura made a small noise of discomfort after a few minutes, another bad dream maybe? I curled against her chest with the slope of my nose against her jaw, the scent of vanilla invading my system. I pushed against her, vibrating my entire body until she was again silent before also succumbing to sleep finally. I woke once briefly to Laura wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my fur, the warmth of her body around me lulling me quickly back to slumber.

***

I woke up to the sight of light brown curls in my eyes, the morning sun reflecting on the natural blonde highlights. Laura was still snoozing away peacefully as it was still fairly early and I stretched out, flexing my claws in and out a few times. I don’t know what it was about doing so, it’s not like it was a habit since I didn’t exactly have retractable claws as a person but it just felt really good. The door to the balcony was still cracked open and I made my way back to my clothes, shifting back to normal once I slipped out and closed the door with a soft click.

I walked back to my apartment with my skin still tingling and eventually found my cell phone, checking it after unplugging it from the charger. There was a missed called from Perry as well as some text messages from Will. I ignored all of them, deeming them unimportant, and changed my sap-smelling clothes to something else that was arguably cleaner, shrugging on the same black leather jacket. It was my favorite and framed my body well, and although thin and useless in winter, perfect in all other temperatures. I didn’t think I’d get more sleep with the sun filling my apartment with light and practically blinding me even though my phone had told me it was only just after seven-thirty, so I headed back down to the cafeteria for an early morning meal. The old kitchen manager threw a fit as I walked in the back door and started rummaging through the very organized pantry cabinets. Every cook and kitchen staff hated when I came in the back to serve myself and upon learning this, I took every chance I could get to do so when I was here for meals. I held an apple, a box of cereal and a can of soda in my arms and pushed the door open with my behind. A granola bar dangled between my teeth and I gave the cashier walking in a wink as I passed after waving at the other scowling staff members.

Being at Silas and a Karnstein did have its perks at times. For example, free food and a nice place to stay. Being the Dean’s daughter though didn’t exactly bode well for me on a social scale, and as glamorizing as it sounded, forced most people to steer clear of me. Luckily, ‘Social Butterfly’ wasn’t very high on my resume.

Everyone kind of thought I was some all-powerful being though. My mother had all these amazing and extremely terrifying powers and everyone was scared shitless of her; and they were smart to be. Unfortunately, that reputation transferred onto me and sometimes William. Only a very few people knew what my actual powers were and I preferred to keep it that way, as the speculations were much more amusing anyway. I really didn’t want people to know more than they had to about me, but it was still frustrating when it came to not actually being able to fling people across the room with my mind like they expected me to. How the rumors stayed afloat was beyond me.

Lost in my thoughts, I almost ran into someone as I turned down my hallway and I sidestepped just before Will could smack into me and my food. His pupils were slit and some of the skin along his neck was scaled in greens and yellows. My food was suddenly forgotten on the carpet where it fell as I shoved him roughly against the wall.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

Will let out a choked laugh, lifting his hands in the air. “Woah, calm down there, Crazy. I came to get you. Ma—“

“Get me? For what?” I interrupted. I didn’t let up on his neck. “Tell me what you were doing in my room Will,” I warned, pressing harder to his neck. He let out another cough.

“We have—there’s a new case for us and—“ I threw him to the side roughly, causing him to lose his balance.

“Fuck off you little rat. I’m not taking you with me. And before you say anything, no, I do not care with Mother says.” The food was back in my arms and my door was opened before he could even respond. I gave Will a steely glare before slamming my door far too loudly as was acceptable for eight in the morning at him and made sure it was locked afterwards. The little rat had been snooping around! I’m going to have to intruder-proof my apartment better. My murder threats apparently weren’t good enough to keep nosy little lizards out.

My phone beeped again to signal a new e-mail and I started reading about my new assignments while digging into my Choc Crunch.

***

The next few days went by in a blur of adventurous fun and chaos.

I spent all of my energy and then some chasing down two ten-year-old dark-skinned brothers who had this freaky power of switching places with each other. It was very similar to Elsie’s power of teleporting, only they could only go to where the other twin was. It was even more confusing that the boys were identical and liked to mess with my head as which twin was which. My head span and the only thing I was grateful for were that they were orphans who’d run away from wherever they’d come from, however bad that sounded, and I hadn’t needed to have the parental talk with any guardians. They came with me willingly, in a matter of speaking.

They came from a tiny little orphanage somewhere in Turkey is what the report had said but I hadn’t tracked them down until after they’d been seen flickering around a small town at the western border of the country, with more than a few people calling authorities about it. It had been kind of chaotic when I’d first found the brats but once I’d wrangled them in the car, it had actually been kind of fun. I wasn’t a huge fan of kids but these buggers were amusing and I quickly went from scolding to teasing them, the boys dishing out witty retorts back with their thick accents.

I soon found out the kids were also masters in pranking and thievery, so instead of paying for a quick bite to eat we distracted the girl at the McDonald’s enough to get three whole bags of junk food from the drive-thru. This ended up turning into a game later on as I'd forgotten to restock the mini-portals in the tiny car I’d borrowed from the Silas and was therefore stuck with two little over-energetic hamsters on a twenty-four hour car ride back. Turns out the boys, going by the names of Eren and Fatin, could also teleport large bags of food with them and we ended up raiding six McDonald’s Drive-Thru’s before stopping at a thrift shop in the early rays of morning, buzzing on sugar and french fries.

After possibly breaking in, I adorned them with clothes that were no longer too small for their already-skinny frames, shoving some extras in a bag for them as they didn’t have anything else they owned besides the old clothes they'd come in that were now in the garbage. Before we left I tossed on a cool-looking hat I saw just as an old grandfather clock located at the front of the shop chimed, telling us it was time to skedaddle before the shop owners showed up. The new clothes also secretly allowed me to tell them apart easier.

How the two young boys fit so much food in their tiny bellies was beyond me, as we'd just stopped at another McDonald's and they'd shared a 10-piece nugget, but they could definitely use the extra pounds. I’d swallowed a fudge sundae and too many French fries to count before finally switching to black coffee for the rest the car ride. The boys, who’d fallen asleep, woke up as I pulled through the stone archway at the entrance of the school. Eren asked how many McDonald's we had gone to and seemed happy with my answer of eight, and Fatin told grabbed their bags and teleported out from the car, Eren soon following him. They didn’t bother to wait for me to turn the car off to begin exploring the grounds.

We eventually made it to Lola Perry’s office and I dropped them in the good and able care of her, laughing at her look of panic as they began destroying her office. She looked like she was about to have an aneurysm.

“No boys! Don’t touch that! Don’t—! Car-Carmilla wait, can’t you just—“

I wiggled my fingers in the air with my back to her. “Have fun,” I said in a sing-song voice after saying goodbye to the boys. I really hoped her spotless office was demolished from the little tornadoes.

***

I spent the whole next day lounging around campus, reading a little and sneaking into some of the more interesting classes, eavesdropping on what the topics of the day were. I also wanted to see how Eren and Fatin were doing. Or rather, _what_ they were doing, being sure it involved destructive chaos of some sort.

Perry had totally freaked out from the mess the kids had made and spent the entire night bleaching the hell out of her office and reorganizing it. She also sent me dirty looks every chance she got, getting joy  from kicking me out of her baking class I'd snuck into she sometimes taught. I could only laugh as I strolled out of the room, snatching one of her muffins on my way out the door.

After locating the younger kids classrooms, I found the boys had been placed in an area of the school with a couple other young children so they could be taken care of, like a 24-hour babysitting sort of thing. They couldn't live on their own yet, so I was glad there would be a place for them to stay and be taken care of. A smile I tried to hide grew on my face when I saw the pranksters with their aid at that particular moment chasing after them down the hall with a look of panic on which twin to go after first when one went left and the other right.

I’d also spent the first night back at Laura’s, curled up in her bed like I'd done two nights before. She still seemed a little down, but it was a vast improvement from a before. When I’d crawled up her balcony again the following evening just to see how she was doing, I hadn’t seen her eating with her dumb giant redhead friend in the cafeteria at all, I noticed the TV on and Laura seated on the couch. It was a good idea I had decided to not change on her balcony this time, using the weeds growing on the side of the building to climb up and balancing on the metal railing to change. I paused when she noticed me bumping the balcony door open farther with my now-small, pink nose.

“You came back,” Laura had said to me quietly, a small smile peeking out.

I immediately padded up to her, meowing softly and rubbing against her ankle.

“I thought I’d scared you off,” she'd said with a laugh, then picked me up and rubbed her face against my soft fur, cuddling me close. I let out a quick mew as an afterthought, thrown by her sudden affection and she scratched around my face and behind my ears.

I went back to visit her each night for the rest of the week. When she’d stir from a dream or nightmare she was having, I’d curl closer to her chest, purring until she was relaxed again. On the third night I noticed that she had deliberately started leaving the balcony door cracked open for me.

***

I chose to hang around Laura’s that weekend instead of going home, curiosity overcoming my usual aloof nature, to know what she got up to. She’d gone out for a short while Saturday afternoon with the stupid giant to do who knows what but had stayed in all day Sunday, so I’d stayed too. Her perkiness had come back a little and she seemed to enjoy my company but she was still quite reserved. Sometimes she’d sketch or watch TV, or try to get me to play with her like a housecat. I was not amused at that and she eventually gave up.

The most curious thing was the odd times she’d grip her head or bridge of her nose, sometimes shaking her head or muttering to herself. I thought she might just have a headache of sorts, but after the few seconds of doing this, she was fine. It was curious but didn’t seem worrisome so I ignored it, sleeping a lot instead and enjoying the attention she would give me. She fed me too! And not disgusting cat food but real human food she would cook in the kitchen! Apparently being away from home did nothing to ruin the cooking skills she apparently possessed and I devoured whatever she made.

Unfortunately after spending such a long amount of time without human eyes, my vision was starting to lose some of its color. Not that I couldn’t have normal human eyes as a cat, but it was a little freaky-looking and would definitely give me away. Seeing in color when I was shifted was the same concept as using any one of my many cat abilities as a human; it just took more energy than it was worth after awhile. And seeing in color was an unfortunate ability that cats did not naturally possess.

So here I was on a warm Sunday afternoon lying in the middle of the campus grass. The sky above was so blue and beautiful that I just couldn’t find any other place more perfect to be at that exact moment and I let my eyes wander across the sea of blue and white. I threw my shades on as the sun reached its peak but didn’t move from my spot, curling my arms back around my jacket that I was using as a pillow. I still couldn’t remember why I’d brought it with me this morning after my shower, but I was glad I’d found a use for it.

Kids and adults alike milled around the field, some walking close to me and some giving me a wide berth as they went about their work or class-filled day, but I was left to myself. I was so glad I had the day off.

Eventually I felt another presence near me and I cracked an eye open to find Laura walking towards me, taking a couple steps closer before turning around and taking a few steps away, muttering to herself. Poor little confused cupcake.

Eventually I heard her nearer and opened my eyes to see her above me, her hair in a messy bun and for once not falling over her face. She was using her hand to shade her eyes and I smiled up at her. “Gonna stare me at me all day, cutie?”

She didn’t say anything back but she did sit next to me with her legs beneath her. A smile played on her lips and she looked like she was thinking of what she wanted to say. I let her ponder and instead of interrupting the cute scrunched- up face she had on and went back to resting with my eyes closed. The sun was too bright to look straight up at now and I didn’t much enjoy the idea of going blind.

I listened to the birds chirping different tunes, mostly larks and finches with the occasional call from a native woodpecker in the pines a few yards from my feet. Laura started pulling grass from the ground, ripping each blade to tiny pieces and I threw my hand near her after five minutes of it, hitting her wrist instead but effectively stopping her nervous act. Her sigh had me opening my eyes to look at her again. I pulled back and a hint of honey mixed with ginger and some sort of sweet fruit hit my nostrils.

“I see you decided to learn personal hygiene today,” I commented. Laura just chuckled at the small jab and I frowned.

“What’s on your mind, sunshine.”

“You know you just rhymed there, right? And that wasn’t technically even a question.”

I shrugged, “So I’m a poet and I didn’t know it?”

Laura’s giggle sent a smile I couldn’t stop across my face and I hoped to God it looked more like a sarcastic sneer.

“You know you aren’t funny,” she said to me.

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“I will,” she quipped.

“I am a woman of many talents, Miss Hollis,” I bragged.

“Oh I’m a ‘miss’, now?” Her upbeat answer had me suddenly more invested in the playful conversation and made me wonder what had gotten into her. Maybe this was the Laura I’d met at that dank café all those weeks ago?

“Unless you’ve been hiding something underneath those upsettingly baggy pants you are still wearing, then I’m afraid so,” I said with a smirk, knowing full well she’d blush. It wasn’t rocket science to know this girl was a goody-goody, however adorable she was.

“No.” Laura’s cheeks were burning with color and I gave myself an invisible point.

“This is a magic school after all. You’ll never know what can happen.” She didn’t respond after that, instead looking up at the sky where my sunglasses made it look like I was staring at as well, though my eyes had been trained on her. She eventually moved her legs from beneath her and I thought she was going to walk away. Was it something I said about the school?

Instead, Laura surprised me by lying beside me, her hip touching mine. Her arms mimicked my own, minus the coat-pillow and I stiffened from her close proximity and charmingly earthy scent.

Laura was silent for a short time before I heard the small intake of breath. “May I ask you a question?” I hummed out an approval.

“When did you…” The pause wasn’t as long before but was trying my curiosity as to what it was she was thinking about that would get her so tongue-tied. The next breath was smaller, “When did you know…well, get…you know…when did you first know that you were, well different…?” She finished awkwardly.

I was glad she was next to me and not sitting above me anymore, lest she see my eyebrows pulled up in the very horrible English she’d just somehow spewed. Before I could answer, Laura started again with a more valid sentence after a huff of frustration.

“I mean…when did you first know you had …powers?” The last word was a whisper. So this was what was plaguing my poor naïve cupcake’s mind. The sudden state of Laura’s body and how she’d been so sick suddenly made sense to me. Though of all the people she came to for this, why she was laying next to _me_ in the middle of the grass picking my brain was beyond me.

“What makes you think I have ‘powers’? I said, making air quotes with my fingers that she couldn’t see behind my head.

“Well I…I just assumed because—“

“When I was eleven.” I said suddenly, not liking the way she was sounding almost embarrassed about asking in the first place. She seemed surprised at my willingness to answer.

“How did you know?” Laura asked curiously. I wasn’t sure if she was asking what my actual powers were or how I knew I had them in the first place, but both answers would give away where I’d been sleeping the past week and so I didn’t answer it.

“Can’t tell you that, cutie.”

“Why not?”

“I have to keep some of my secrets, don’t I? Otherwise I’ll lose my air of mystery.” I technically wasn’t lying.

Laura stared at the sky after that and I turned slightly to see her eyes close, the sun gliding off her smooth skin in golden waves. She no longer looked like the tiny, dorky college girl I had for all intents and purposes, saved. Instead, she reminded me of a golden warrior, a strong fighter with oceans of wit. A warrior with dark shadows still under her eyes though and confused thoughts that were begging to get past her tongue. I turned so I was leaning onto my elbow and focused my full attention to her this time.

“How’ve you been holding up, cupcake?”

She hummed out a poor response and shrugged. I ignored it. “Alright, that’s nice. So how’ve you _really_ been?”

The relaxed look on her face was replaced with one of anguish or an extreme sadness of some sort, her eyes moving under her lids and I took my shades off to see better. “My head feels like it’s going to explode and I’ve been getting the worst déjà vu in the world. It’s like my brain is feeding me PEZ candy visions and I don’t even think it’s _my_ past, present and future that I’m seeing.”

“Hmm. Déjà vu, huh?” I said, more than a little confused at her explanation that didn’t really explain anything. It was extremely Laura though to compare something to candy though. I’d noticed her sweet-tooth the moment she’d eaten cookies as a meal that first day.

“I think—“ Laura stammered out, taking a breath, “I think everyone was right and I…like you and LaFontaine…and Perry…”

“You like me?” I said with a smirk, knowing it wasn’t what she meant; she looked like she was drowning in word vomit.

“Not like that, Carm!” Laura spat out, blushing and sitting up as I chuckled.

“That’s not what I meant,” she pouted.

“I know,” I acknowledged softly. Laura pouting was adorable. “Well, spit it out, sweetheart.”

“I can see things, Carm. In my _mind_. When I’m walking around, reading, talking to someone, sleeping…“ The last word was trailed off into a whisper. I didn’t say anything, knowing if I mentioned her dreams she’d wonder how I knew of them.

I whistled the tune to _The Outsiders_ before turning it into a small cough after her glare. “What exactly do you mean by ‘see things’?”

“Like the future,” she said seriously.

“Oh, come off it,” I scoffed. This is a joke, right? “You can’t be serious. You probably have some, weird freaky little power like making flowers pop up from the ground or something.” I didn’t really want her to feel like this was a joke, like what she was saying wasn’t true, but for it to be the truth was filling my gut with a terrible feeling.

Laura blinked a few times and rubbed at her left eye, causing a few strands of hair to fall over her brow and against her cheek. Before I could think about what I was doing my finger was tucking the strands behind her ear. This time when her eyes met mine they were warm, shy. I quickly withdrew my hand.

“I knew you were going to do that,” she said to me. My eyes moved from her ear to her eyes to her cheek and back to her eyes. The soft brown staring back at me gave a slow blink and I finally remembered to respond.

“Do what?” I didn’t know I had lowered my voice to match her own whispered speech.

“Touch my hair.” I blinked. “And put it behind my ear.” I glanced at her ear again.

“And take your hand away,” she continued, “And what you were going to say when I told you so. And you blinking your eyes at me. And—“

“What?“ Oh no no no.

“I have these flashes sometimes, like visions. Sometimes it’s in my dreams but sometimes it’s like a mini-movie turns on and I can see things that’ve happened before, or are going to happen. I think. Most happen the same day but—“ I finally understood what she was trying to tell me and flung my hand across her mouth to shut her up.

She could see the future. She could see the god damn future, this crazy girl.

I sprung up to my feet, feeling a little paranoid about where we were. Just because it was a large and rather empty grass field didn’t mean someone wasn’t listening.

“Carm is everyth—“

“Come.” I quickly pulled Laura up by her hands after placing my own palm up, ignoring her questions and I all but dragged her through the field and past the quad, into the school. I shushed her and she stopped questioning what I was doing. I couldn’t have anyone hear what we were saying, lest the wrong ears overhear.

I didn’t notice how fast I was going under she almost tripped up the stairs leading to my apartment and I slowed my sprint slightly until we got to my door. After pulling her through and locking it I jumped above the frame and pressed the little button above that made my apartment impenetrable from any magic outside it, courtesy of LaFontaine and their computer geek friend.

I made sure the rooms were all empty before turning to Laura, attempting to be calm and collected. I took a sharp inhale, “Who else have you told of this, Laura?”

I wasn’t sure if she was scared or just taken aback but it took her a moment before she answered. “No one, just you. I mean, I don’t even know if that’s what’s happening but…it just seems like it…”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Good. Alright. That’s good.” I ran my fingers through my bangs. How was I going to keep this from my mother? Laura was a fucking student here now. And _I_ was to blame for that. Oh God, what if Laura thought that was why I brought her here in the first place? She’d never forgive me. I might as well throw the little trust she had in me out the window. I didn’t even know if I wanted her to, but I thought I did. And I was not about to hand her over to my mother’s sharp clutches.

“Stop freaking me out Carmilla!” Laura’s yell was loud and stopped me in my pacing.

“Listen Laura, you cannot, I repeat, _cannot_ tell anyone about your powers around here. At all. No one. Do you understand?”

“I guess so, but why not? Is there something wrong with it? With me? I mean, I don’t even know if that’s what’s it is, I could just be crazy, y’know. Like hallucinations or something…” Water glossed over her eyes and I put my hands around her shoulders.

“No, honey. Nothing is wrong with you. Believe me. You’re perfect.” It was the most truthful thing I could have ever said to her, no matter what the context was. Laura’s eyes bored into mine.

“I just…it’s my mother. She’s…she’s been looking for someone like you. God, someone _exactly_ like you, for a very long time.”

I cursed loudly, feeling overwhelmed and sat against the arm of my couch, falling back with a rather dramatic sigh. My body was buzzing with anger and frustration and I just wanted to shift into something large, powerful. Laura took a seat next to my head, moving my hair so she didn’t pull it.

“My mother is not a good person, Laura. Not at all…”

“I know your mom is the dean,” Laura mentioned. “Everyone says she’s scary.”

I looked up to her face, sideways and upside down from my position and she regarded me with cool eyes. I averted my own and looked to the ceiling.

“Why would your mother be looking for me?” She asked curiously.

I huffed. “I’m not sure, honestly. When I first became a tracker, one of my main jobs was to search for someone like you. I was never given a name or anything, just a description of powers to look for. It was like a secret mission I was always on for her, to find this mysterious someone who could see into the future. Will helped too sometimes, tagging along, but he was still little…” I trailed off.

“Who’s Will?” Laura asked.

“My brother.” She nodded, accepting the answer with a smile and I continued, “I was my mother’s little spy back then. But after a while she just, I dunno, seemed to give up. I was never privy to mother’s plans after…well, after she deemed me no longer trustworthy, and it hasn’t come up since.“

Laura was silent, listening to my story. I didn’t like where my thoughts were going so I switched subjects.

“Maman—my mother, she reopened Silas when I was much younger. She said she wanted to do so much good, help the ones like us who were scared, alone. To give them a place to go. It had been a real shithole, too, back then.” I gave a low laugh, remembering how dirty and rundown the place had been, “She’s refurbished the shit out of this place since, even adding in the extra buildings like where you stay as well as staffing this place and turning it back into a successful school. So, that’s cool I guess.” I picked at my bangs.

Laura remained silent, looking at me every so often.

“Laura?” I called, looking at her upside down again.

Bright caramel looked back. “It’s not like I can actually see the future,” she said with a smile, “I can just…sometimes I have flickers in my head of things that end up happening. No big deal.”

“That’s called seeing the future, dipshit.”

I rolled my eyes as she waved me off, “I’m not getting any visions of some old lady using me as a lab rat or anything, so I think I’m good for now.”

I let out a smile. We were talking about her being wanted by my crazy dean-of-a-mother for who knows what, maybe dissect her brain, and she was cracking jokes.

“Well, it’s good she’s never around. It’ll be easier to hide you since she doesn’t know you’re here yet. I’ll ask if Will knows any more about it. If my mother were still searching for you, he would know.” Laura nodded.

“Alright. Your mother still trusts him then?”

“As far as I know, yeah. I just caught him snooping through my shit a few hours ago, but my mother can’t get in here. It’s too guarded up. Will can get past in his other form sometimes though, the weasel.”

“Your brother’s a weasel?” Her eyes were wide.

I let out a genuine laugh, “No! He’s a lizard. But I would most definitely pay someone some of my mother’s good money to make that a reality.”

I rolled off the couch and stood. “So, you hungry, buttercup?"


	8. Constructing My Own Galaxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura is starting to be cool and happy and Carmilla is kind of adorable. Also, welcome back LaF! Laura's POV this chapter :)

So according to Carmilla, I could see the future. Which was pretty freaking awesome, really. I felt like I should be announcing it on national television or something, or calling and telling my dad, if I had the option. Or at least playing the lottery! Not that I was sure Austria even had a lottery, but c’mon. I’d totally win if it did.

Instead, I was sitting on an overly-expensive wooden table eating chicken fingers and fries across from Carmilla.

I was also apparently a wanted woman and I had no idea how worried I should be about what Carmilla told me earlier about her mother and my supposed powers. I still wasn’t completely convinced I could see the future or the past or whatever, but I figured these visions of sorts were of things I’d never seen before, future, past or present irrelevant. Trusting someone else who had pretty much 100% more experience in superpowers than I did was my best bet. And the scenes in my head, well, I suppose it was like a really shitty film that kept buffering all day long and only playing clips that made no sense and didn’t go together. I’d call them memories but they weren’t exactly mine so I just couldn’t be sure. To think that someone would want to somehow use me for anything useful was laughable to me.

But Carmilla was so serious and worried about it earlier. About me.

It was a lot to think about, so I gave up and took another bite of chicken.

Carmilla and I were seated near some of the the tall windows in the back of the cafeteria, the open double doors to one side of us with the kitchen across them to the other side. Tables and chairs took up basically all of the floor space with only a small section along the edge by the kitchen to pick out your food selections.

The sun shone across the benches we sat on, the wooden slats hanging covering the tops of the windowpanes fortunately blocking the light from blinding me. A few times I’d gotten flashes of hens flapping about as we ate and I’d pause between bites, trying to see past the animals that weren’t really there, or voices yelling from nowhere. The visions were getting easier to differentiate between real-time and voices-and-people-in-my-head-that-weren’t-really-in-front-of-me, but I probably still looked insane. If Carmilla noticed anything, she didn’t comment. 

The cafeteria was the busiest I’d ever seen it, with almost half the tables filled with students chatting. Most of them I noticed looked around my age, or our age, with a few younger kids floating around. Literally, there were kids floating around. I squinted, trying to see if they had some sort of hoverboard or nimbus 2000.

I looked away with a roll of my eyes after deciding the kid really was floating and back towards Carmilla. She’d gotten the same food as me, plus a gigantic cup of pudding and was licking her spoon upside down as she ate. Her head sort of looked like a halo was around the top from the sun and her eyes sparkled mischievously as our eyes met

“Hey Carm,” I asked between another small bite, “how old are you?”

She was pulling apart a piece of her chicken in tiny bites and waited until her mouth was full of food to answer. “Carm, huh? Hmm. Why d’ya wanna know?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because I wanna know. It was suddenly bugging me. C’mon, tell me?”

“Nah.”

I huffed. “You know how old I am.”

“I do?”

I nodded, not entirely sure she did but I went with the assumption with confidence.

She continued to lick her half-dipped spoon like some sort of cat. “Guess.”

“Really?” I said monotonously.

“Mmmmhm.”

I groaned loudly. “Twelve.”

I let out a light laugh from the glare she sent me.

“You’re oh-so-close. Use those special skills you’ve got there, cupcake,” she said with a wiggle of her fingers.

I huffed, unsure of what she meant by ‘skills’, “Well you’re acting like it!”

She responded by stealing one of my fries even though she still had half a plate of her own.

“Get your own!” I scooted my tray closer to me.

Her snickering laugh was annoying and a few moments after it faded, she breathes a soft, “Twenty one.”

I grinned, not expecting her to answer as soon as she did, and neither did she judging by her eye contact avoidance. I didn’t comment on the lack of protest. “Hey! That’s sort of like twelve.”

“What? No it’s not. It’s not even close,” she said after her hacking fit.

“Sure it is. If you just like, flip the one and the two and—“

“Laura!”

A voice that was not in my head or four feet across from me had me turning my attention from Carmilla and her obnoxious eating habits to find the large eyes belonging to a very tall redhead trotting up the aisle.

“Hey Danny!” I waved as Danny took a seat on top of the table, her feet still touching the ground. She eyed Carmilla warily and looked at us sitting together.

“Hey Laura,” There was a long pause before she looked away and back towards me and continued, “Hey, so I haven’t seen you in a few days. Perry said you were going to start coming to classes soon?” Her shoes scuffed the dark floor.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to start this week some time actually,” I stopped a moment as a memory that wasn’t mine filtered through, and continued when it passed. I’d momentarily forgotten about my decision of starting actual classes here. “I have to go see LaFontaine again about that. I’ve no idea what I told them to sign me up for and I’m afraid they might put me in a class that’s going to kill me. Like you know, math or something.”

Danny laughed good-naturedly. “Yeah, math sucks no matter where you take it.” She frowned slightly before it faded back into a smile and continued, “Well very cool, let me know when you get you’re uh, when you’re free and have your schedule and I’ll give you that tour? Wouldn’t want you to get lost around here,” she added teasingly, punching my shoulder lightly and sparing another glance towards Carmilla. I guess she thought I’d gotten lost here and found myself eating with Carmilla?

When a short vision of Carmilla jumping off the top of gymnasium stands flooded my head, I realized the last time Danny saw me with Carmilla had been in the gym when I’d gotten upset. I’ll have to explain to her that Carmilla and I were alright now and hope she’d understand. It seemed there was a little more to their mutual hatred than my petty drama, but I figured I’ll ask Danny about it later.

 “Definitely. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday?” I said with a gracious smile back to her. I really did appreciate the tour Perry had given me the other day but I learned diddly squat, except for how to get spectacularly lost in the bigger-than-big school. So I hoped Danny wouldn’t back out on showing me how to get to my classes.

Danny nodded as her blue eyes twinkled. “Sounds great Laura.” A moment passed as she started at me before Carmilla made a noise as if she was about to hurl, to which I sent her a murderous glare.

“Well, if you’d like to come eat lunch with us, the gang and I’re just over there,” Danny said with a finger pointed towards a table a few yards away. I noticed Kirsch in the bunch, trying and failing to juggle some oranges.

I looked between Danny and Carmilla, with the taller girl waiting for my answer and pointedly ignoring Carmilla as the shorter girl had made it her life goal to make as much noise as possibly while scooping pudding on her spoon.

As much as I’d like Dany’s invitation to include us both, I knew it didn’t. As much as I wanted to sit with Danny and her friends, I really wanted to talk with Carmilla for once.

“Um, thanks Danny but I think I’m good here for today. Next time?” I pretended not to notice Carmilla’s eyes shooting up at me, her spoon-scraping process halted. She immediately began eating again, quieter though.

Danny hummed and nodded once. “Sounds good. Let me know about this week, yeah?” She stood up.

“Okay. Let’s shoot for Tuesday?” She gave me a thumbs up and started back to her table as I turned my attention back to Carmilla.

“Bye Beanstalk,” Carmilla called out with a wave. I hoped Danny was too far away to hear her but it was doubtful. I flicked some pudding at her from the top ledge of her bowl.

“Can you be any more obnoxious? And it’s literally impossible to eat pudding loudly,” I declared, skipping over the part about the smile still on her lips. It was obvious she was glad I’d stayed.

“Like I told you before, I’m full of talents.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

***

I walked back to where my apartment was with Carmilla laughing as I finished my story of the first time my dad and I tried to cook lasagna.

“How old were you again?”

“Ten,” I said between laughs, “I really can’t believe we still ate that thing. It was awful. Nala wouldn’t even eat it.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nala? Oh, she’s my dog. The greatest dog ever you’ll ever meet! You’d love her, really. I’d show you a picture if I could.” I never did figure out what happened to my cell phone. A vivid memory of the night I’d come here came up and I saw a young man in a cap talking to me and grabbing my arm. I felt a pain in my shoulder and rubbed it absentmindedly. I really had to figure out how to choose when these visions came. “Well anyway, she’s like a golden-retriever mix of some sort and is the same color as Nala from the Lion King, hence the name.”

“I’m assuming that means she’s tan, but she sounds great cupcake. Not a big dog person myself, but only because they don’t seem to like me either.” Carmilla and I had gotten to my floor and I searched my pockets for the key.

“Yeah, assum—wait a minute. Are you telling me what I _think_ you’re telling me?” I breathed out.

One of her eyebrows lifted but she said nothing.

“Carmilla…whatever your last name is, are you telling me you have never seen The Lion King??”

She laughed, “Karnstein. And no?” The look on her face was either curiosity or indifference, it was hard to tell.

“Well, first thing’s first, as soon as I get my movies in my hands, we’re watching it. Jesus, how have you never seen The Lion King? That’s like saying you’ve never seen…well, The Lion King!” I threw my hands up, whacking one of them on the doorknob and flinging the key in the air. “Ow!”

As I shook the pain out, her hand shot out and rubbed the knuckle I’d hit with her thumb.

“Calm down cutie, don’t hurt yourself. I’ll watch your movie.” An image of Carmilla and I sitting on a couch that looked a lot like the couch in my living room back home froze me. My visions didn’t feature me a whole lot, and when they did they were usually past memories I remembered. I beamed a smile at her.

Alright.” I wasn’t sure if or when I’d ever get my things brought here, but if what I’d just seen was true, I wouldn’t be here forever. And neither would Carmilla, apparently. I cleared my throat as she handed the key to me from the floor.

“So, now that I’ve accepted that I’m as awesome as you—“

“Woah, woah, slow down there. Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Carmilla interrupted.

I ignored her, “I probably should have some sort of power to tell people, right? If I can’t tell them my real one then I had to be able to do something, right?”

She said nothing so I continued, “I mean I’m at a school where everyone has superpowers. It’s inevitable that _someone’s_ going to want to know what I can do and will eventually ask.”

She seemed to digest that for a moment. “As in a fake power?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, won’t I get kicked out or something if I don’t have any? Which, you all said I did and LaFontaine’s tests said and…well not that it would be bad if I got kicked out or anything but—” Carmilla smiled sadly and I stopped my rambling. “So, what are some of the coolest things you’ve seen people do? Like with their powers,” I finished lamely

The edges of her eyes crinkled. “Besides pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

“Ha Ha.” As I playfully smacked her shoulder, a disturbing image of a very large cat making a bloody meal out of a wild rabbit crossed my mind. It’s dead, glassy eyes bored into my own and I sucked in a breath. It was a little intense and Carmilla suddenly had her hands near my arms, hovering but not touching me. Her eyes stared hard into mine.

“Laura? It was a joke, sunshine. I’m sorry. Laura?”

I nodded and cleared my throat. “Yes I…I had just hoped the scary ones had gone away…” I whispered softly to myself. Usually the darker visions were only when I was dreaming.

Her fingers came closer to my arms but never touched me. “Lola Perry can bake anything in the entire world. You could be supernaturally good at baking or whatever,” she said.

It made me laugh a little. “My superpower is being a good baker?”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, “It’s really more of a talent but, you know. Whatever.”

I scrunched my face up. “So Perry’s power isn’t making delectable treats appear from thin air?”

“No, it’s not. She’s just fucking wonderful at it.”

“Well, rats.”

“Just keep it a secret,” she stated more seriously, “No one will bug you to tell them. And if they do, threaten them. There’s no way to know what someone’s power really is at this god-forsaken school. For all they know, you can shoot lasers from your eyes or some shit.”

“Oh my gosh! That would be so cool! Can people really do that?”

“Maybe.” She blinks. “Probably.”

I turn to unlock the door, still speaking to her, “So on a more serious note, is your mom really going to use me for some evil plan or dissect my brain? I mean, I’d definitely prefer the first one but neither is very preferable,” I turn back around, “I like my brain how it is.” I look to her and she’s looking back at me, her eyes a few inches above my own.

“You’ll be fine, Laura. Just be safe, and stay quiet about what you see,” she points next to her right eye with her finger, “and you’ll be fine. I’ll figure things out.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I wasn’t about to argue or stop her. I had no idea what I was doing but here she was, trying to help me. My brain was starting to fizzle out again, a headache coming on.

“Thanks for having lunch with me today.”

She nods, looking just as grateful, “No problem cutie. Anytime.”

After everything I’d been through since I’d first met her, from the drinks at the café to being kidnapped, and now having no choice but to attend a school full of kids who had all sorts of powers, including myself. Powers that I was starting to accept. I might have been angry at her for getting me into this situation, but she had also been there for me. She’d been there when I was getting my shoulder fixed. And when I’d been upset, she hadn’t asked questions. Instead she tried to make me feel better, even if it really hadn’t worked at the time.

And then there was today.  It had taken me some time to get the courage to find her and talk to her, trust her, but I didn’t trust anyone else at this school. Sure I could have told Perry or LaFontaine, or even Danny probably, and asked them for help. But I hadn’t. I was afraid and I barely knew them, and for some reason my first instinct had been to go to Carmilla. And she hadn’t judged me or called me crazy or even said ‘I told you so’. She’d protected me like she’s been doing this entire time.

My situation seemed to be getting crazier by the day, but I couldn’t do this on my own. And if Carmilla was right and I really did have some sort of powers that her evil mother was looking to use for bad things, then I needed someone here. And Carmilla was there for me, ready, honest and willing.

I threw myself at her, sliding my arms around her waist. I really didn’t want us to go back to hating each other like last week and I prayed to myself that we wouldn’t. “Thank you Carm,” I whispered.

She stood still, not moving or breathing. Her shirt smelled like grass and pine needles.

Eventually she brought her arms around me awkwardly. Some of my hair got trapped between my shoulder and her chin as she tucked it against my neck.

She looked ahead, not giving me eye contact as she cleared her throat and said goodbye. I waited until she turned the corner before closing the door, a smile on my face.

***

My hair was soaking my pillow as I lay on my bed and yawned. After spending the rest of the afternoon drawing I’d wandered outside, finding Danny with Kirsch and a couple of their ‘bros’ as he called them playing a game of soccer in the grass in front of my building.  The entire school was surrounded by a thick expanse of trees, but there was only one road in and out of the school, blocked by a huge locked gate and grass covering every inch in between. Every other area from corner to corner was completely covered in trees. It had been rather unnerving and seemed very much like a prison with tree-fences, but once I’d found Danny I had joined her and her friends, mostly keeping score. Drawing had cleared my mind and headache thankfully. During the soccer game I even had a few blips of the future score, which had made me giggle since I knew Kirsch’s team was going to win in the end.

Though, if the extent of my new-found powers were foretelling the score of sport games, I was ready to trade them in any time.

I also found out that Danny was a very sore loser.

Everyone had eventually gone back to their respective living quarters and as it turns out Kirsch and I live in the same building! When he learned this he had insisted on walking me back to my door, even though he lived on the first floor and my apartment was all the way on the fourth.

“It’s my honorary duty to protect any and all little hotties, Laura. Plus, you’re my friend now! So it’s an even bigger duty,” he’d said. We had both started laughing after he said ‘duty’ twice and I thanked him before parting ways.

The digital clock beside my bed flipped to 11:21 PM and I closed my eyes, trying to test my visions. I was relaxed, I’d just eaten a delicious bagel and I was suddenly ready to learn how to work these stupid things. I tried to think of my childhood, of my dad and Nala and our farmhouse I grew up in. Things I knew I had memories of. Nothing happened though, so instead I let my mind drift to more recent memories, like my first day of college and my obnoxious roommate that I actually kind of missed.

Twenty minutes later and all I’d managed to do was fall asleep. I groaned loudly and rolled off my bed dramatically to brush my teeth. I might as well just go to sleep. The clock now blinked out a bright 12:03 AM.

Before I went back to bed, I cracked open the balcony doors, like I’d been doing every night lately. Just in case my little friend came to visit. It still got a little lonely, and even though I hadn’t been anywhere except around the school and my room, I kept reminding myself I was in Austria and not the United States. I vaguely wondered how I would get back if I didn’t have a passport before I remembered I hadn’t needed one to be teleported over here in the first place.

An image of when I walked with Lola Perry and LaFontaine through that little mini portal of sorts to her office flashed across my eyes and I cursed inwardly. Of course a vision comes through exactly when I’m not trying to form one. Stupid powers.

Right before shutting my eyes for the final time that night I felt a soft thump on the bed near my feet and smiled.

***

Monday was spent mostly watching television in my living room, one lame movie after another, as I cuddled with my new fluffy friend.

She really was a beautiful cat and although it made me miss my own dog, I loved having her around. I still wasn’t that comfortable taking leisurely walks around the school, as it was hard to go many other places besides the cafeteria and the grounds without getting lost, and now with the whole ‘you’re-a-wanted-woman-with-powers’ thing, I was a little afraid to go wandering around by myself. So I’d chosen to coop myself up in my little apartment, eating bagel crisps while I absentmindedly scratched under the cat’s chin. It made her purr the loudest. Her tail flicked against my neck leisurely whenever I stopped, her body above me on the back of the couch.

Around midday, it padded away with a small meow and leaped off the balcony railing, apparently having no problem leaping four stories down to the grass. I’d yet to give the little cat a name, as I’m sure it already had one, but I still felt bad not knowing what to call it. But tame cats don’t live in middle of the Austrian pine forest after all and it seemed to me there wasn’t a whole lot of coming and going no matter who or what you were around here. I wondered if the cat made house calls to anyone else in the building and made a mental note to ask Danny when I saw her tomorrow if someone was missing a pet.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to force some sort of vision to appear. They were getting more frequent but less surprising, and I grew more and more frustrated after each one when I knew they were not of my own volition. It was past nightfall when I all but threw one of the couch pillows across the room in irritation. Every time I tried to force some sort of vision to appear, I got nothing. And yet visions kept filtering through when I didn’t want them, of things that still made no sense to me.

I went to pick up the angrily discarded pillow and as soon as my fingers touched it, a vision came of myself throwing the same pillow across my living room. As I dropped the pillow, the vision halted.

I took a breath, closed my eyes and grabbed the pillow again as I thought of what had just happened and against, the image of me chucking it across the room and then getting up to get it appeared. And that’s when I had the most brilliant revelation of my life yet.

I ran back to the couch, forgetting the ugly couch pillow and touched my bagel crisps bag, thinking of the last person to have touched this bag  and sure enough, a vision floated across of myself eating the god damn bagel crisps on the couch, crumbs falling on my shirt. I squealed with delight and started jumping around. Yes!

I then spent the next two hours touching almost square inch of the apartment and thinking of the last time I had used or touched the particular item and getting vision after vision of myself brushing my teeth, or yawning, or pressing the buttons on the microwave.  Watching myself sketch pictures on the notepad my fingers were splayed over under my pillow put me to sleep that night.

***

As I awoke that morning, it was with great reluctance. I rolled onto my back and smiled at the thought of how no nightmares had plagued me while I slept. I felt so refreshed, happy even!

Today I was to meet Danny and LaFontaine and get my schedule for the second time, only this time it’d be with the proper mindset. With an extra hop in my step and a smile on my face, I got ready for the day quickly.

I ran into my room and picked up the small cinnamon-colored cat on my bed as I was about to leave, holding her to me and grabbing my notepad with the other hand.

“C’mon, little friend! We’ve got a big day ahead!” the small cat’s response was to yawn and go back to sleep as I bounced around the apartment, checking everything was turned off and locked. Her little legs were dangling and flouncing around dramatically.

_How is the poor thing still sleeping?_

A vision of Carmilla curled up on the hospital bed I’d woken up in my first night here floated across my visage, her jacket covering her eyes as she selectively muted all the noise around her and napped.

I looked down at the half-conscious cat and smiled, giggling to myself at the comparison my mind somehow gave to me. I ran the rest of the way down the stairs and onto the first floor and through the main doors before setting the cat outside.

“See you tonight!” With a kiss to her forehead, I headed towards the cafeteria.

***

As soon as Danny closed the bathroom door, I pulled LaFontaine towards me with excitement.

“LaF! I have something to tell you! Or show you! Or…well, I guess just tell you!” My veins buzzed.

Their eyebrows rose, trying to figure out my change of mood, “What’s up L?”

Their nickname for me caused my smile to only grow, “ LaF, I can…I can use my powers! I figured them out!” I couldn’t help but clap my hands gleefully. Carmilla’s warning to keep this a secret floated across my mind, but LaFontaine had been nothing but helpful to me; they wouldn’t tell anyone. And they seemed like if I asked them to keep it a secret, they would.

“Did you now? Good going, Hollis! So, out with it. Show me then, or tell me. Whichever.” They crossed their arms, waiting.

“Okay! Um…” I pondered for a moment, checking that Danny was still in the bathroom and looked around LaF’s room-turned-office. I didn’t necessarily not trust Danny, she was just unpredictable to me.

I picked up a pen sitting next to LaFontaine’s mousepad and closed my eyes. A moment passed and I grinned from ear to ear. “The last thing you wrote with this pen is a note to Lola Perry stating you were going to be late for dinner, with a winkey face and a heart at the end,” I set the pen back where I found it.

“Laura can you...can you see…” they scratched the back of their neck thoughtfully and continued, “touch that there,” they then said, pointing at a coat lying across a tall kitchen chair.

I shrugged and grabbed at it.

“Wait, I want you to tell me who wore it last,” they spoke quickly. I nodded and focused for a moment, glad the visions were coming with ease.

“A…young man did. He wore a hat. I don’t know who he is though…”

They nodded and interrupted my train of thought, “Okay, great! Who is going to wear it next?”

My eyebrows scrunched together at their question, as I hadn’t exactly been practicing on forcing to see things that hadn’t happened yet. But it was worth a shot I supposed. If I could see the past then surely this worked both ways.

My grip tightened on the warm jacket with concentration and after only a few seconds I popped my eyes open with delight, “It’s…! Perry! Perry! She’s gonna be in this room and get cold and you’ll lend it—!”

I jumped at the sound of the bathroom door opening and set the coat back down, LaFontaine’s smile growing wider and wider as Danny walked towards us. As soon as she was beside us again, LaFontaine grabbed the schedule lying on the printer and handed it to me.

“Like Danny was saying before, this first class here is a bore, early but easy, _very_ easy. Most students are enrolled and I’m sure you’ll meet plenty of new and interesting people there, so enjoy it while you can. Your 10:00 AM class you’ll have with Perry herself, just don’t be late or burn anything and you’ll be dandy,” I imagined all the ways I could fail a baking class with a scoff as LaF carried on, “11:30 is that focus class I was telling you about with Ms. Schroeder, _Your Mind and You_ , and then you have that…weird yoga class at 3:00 with Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Is—“

“Pierogi,” Danny cut in with a loud whisper.

“Mr. Pierogi,” LaF mocked, flipping the piece of paper over. I failed to stifle my chuckle,” and don’t forget that psychology class you just added. The lady who teaches that only offers it once a week, that’s on Thursdays at two at the end of hallways B.”

I nodded, “Mkay. So all my classes are Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week, with Psychology 101 on Thursdays. And you’re sure this map you gave me has all the right information?” I gave a wary glance towards the part marked ‘2nd floor’ at the front of the school and how close my new English class was to the Dean’s office.

“It better. I just updated it myself a week ago. Seems like they’re always adding to this damn place.”

“English is on the 2nd floor?” Danny and LaF both nodded, Danny pointing to the exact room. “With Kirsch and I,” she said to me and as an image of myself sitting next to Danny in a room of desks came to me, I let out a nervous breath. They both seemed unworried about anything and I tried to feel the same. At least I wouldn’t be alone.

I turned to LaFontaine.

“So get ready Hollis. Tomorrow is your first day of school at Silas University!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I know I have just thousands of people waiting on this amazing story. -sarcasm- But now that Christmas is over, I can cut down on my crocheting by like 1,000 times and have free time to continue this bad boy. Hurray!
> 
> Anyway. Tell me what you think. Please! :) If this superbly sucks, tell me. If you have nothing or everything, tell me. If you can think of things for me to add or get rid of or change, tell me pretty please!
> 
> Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and has a great New Years too!
> 
> I promise I won't wait 4 months again to update this, even if the chapters are shorter than I'd like. And I really am sorry this chapter is short. 
> 
> P.S. This will probably be in Laura's POV for the next few chapters, but we will see where the story goes. Later!


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